Pete Buttigieg slams Republicans for complaining about flight delays but trying to cut funding

Out Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg slammed House Republicans for trying to cut back funding for air travel as the U.S. heads into what could be the busiest travel season ever.

“It is striking when you see some of these same elected officials who seem ready to make it a partisan issue, even if their flight is delayed in bad weather, turn around and be prepared to go to the floor of the House and cut funding for air traffic control or worse, threaten to shut down the government and force air traffic controllers to work without pay,” Buttigieg said at a press conference yesterday about increased travel during the Thanksgiving weekend.

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He didn’t name names, but many Republican lawmakers who have voted against funding for transportation infrastructure have used social media to attack Buttigieg when their flights have been delayed.

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Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), for example, called Buttigieg “clueless” earlier this year when a technological problem temporarily delayed some flights, while House Republicans have been threatening to cut FAA funding for the next fiscal year. Congress hasn’t even passed a bill to fund the Department of Transportation through fiscal year 2024 – just like it hasn’t been able to pass several other large spending bills to fund the government – and, to stop a government shutdown, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) worked with Democrats to pass a stopgap measure to fund the government through January, a measure many far-right Republicans voted against.

Buttigieg warned that the strife in Congress and possible cuts to FAA funding will only make air travel harder for Americans.

“Every time extremist Republicans in Congress bring us to the brink of a government shutdown, it threatens to stop the momentum that we built around training and around protecting customer rights,” he said at the press conference. “Every time they threaten to slash funding for DOT and short the FAA – and there’s a Republican proposal to do that on the cusp of reaching the House floor right now – it threatens to reverse all of this progress.”

“But if some voices in Congress got their way, we would have to freeze hiring new staff. We would be set back in modernizing computer systems, including the badly outdated system that forced the FAA to ground planes when there was an outage back in January. It would disrupt the progress that we’ve made. I’m certain that it would lead to more disruptions in air travel.” 

Earlier in the press conference, Buttigieg said that this weekend is expected to be the busiest ever for air travel.

“This holiday season is estimated to bring some of the busiest travel days in U.S. history, building on a summer that was already record-breaking,” he said.