Trump, turbulence and travel: Are US skies still safe?

Anyone considering a trip to the US is confronted with a question: Is it safe to go? Headlines from the second administration of President Donald Trump convey scenes of disruption, confusion, corruption and shattered norms.

Is it possible to enjoy a vacation in a country like this?

You can imagine two circles of a Venn diagram: One represents the Trump-spurred disruption and sense of perma-crisis he brings. A second one represents basic aviation safety and having a good time. Surely, the two circles can’t stay separate forever. If and when they overlap, will they overlap on your holiday to the US?

The US suffered its most deadly air crash in years in January when an American Airlines Flight collided with a US Army Black Hawk helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Virginia, killing 67 people. A preliminary investigation raised questions about congestion in the area and the air traffic control staffing.

A perhaps more pressing example in the era of Trump: air traffic controllers at Newark Liberty airport near New York lost radar vision and radio contact with flights on April 28. Some controllers were so upset afterwards that they took trauma leave.

After the scare, the chief executive of United, which uses Newark as a hub, cut back flights for safety. One contributing factor is that Newark is a temporarily closed runway, set to reopen in June.

But to give a sense of the challenge for the US more broadly, consider that there are 3800 commercial flights a day in Australia. In the US, that number is closer to 27,500, with air traffic controllers monitoring and directing 5000 flights simultaneously in peak periods.

The Federal Aviation Administration has been trying to upgrade its network of staff and equipment for decades, while attracting more air traffic controllers. There are now 14,000 air traffic controllers in the US, nearly 2000 of them hired last year. However, that still leaves a shortfall of 3000.

Trump has largely inherited this problem, though he previously had four years as president to address it.

However, it’s far from clear that Trump is inclined or capable of improving the situation for US air traffic control. Immediately after the January crash near Washington, Trump blamed “diversity, equity and inclusion” hires as contributing to the ability of air traffic controllers to function.

In a statement at the time, Trump claimed that under former president Joe Biden the FAA “specifically recruited and hired individuals with ‘severe intellectual’ disabilities [and] psychiatric issues …’”

When Trump returned to office in January, he came with billionaire campaign funder Elon Musk in tow, pushing a radical government-slashing project called DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency).

FAA air traffic controllers are themselves exempt from DOGE cuts and are being recruited. But at more senior levels, the Washington Post reports, in keeping with the DOGE purges, there has been an exodus of people.

American air traffic control is ripe for reform. As the Brookings Institute notes: “The consensus of countless commissions and expert reports is that air traffic management is a 24/7 high-tech service ‘business’ trapped in a regulatory agency that is constrained by federal budget and acquisition rules.” That is, the budget for its modernisation keeps getting eaten up by the cost of maintaining legacy systems.

United chief executive Scott Kirby reassured reporters in New York on May 13: “At Newark, first and foremost, it is safe. It is absolutely safe when these issues happen. Our pilots are trained with back-up procedures to keep the airline safe, and so whether you lose communications or radar, we have back-up procedures.”

To his credit, Kirby has not shied away from the issue. Kirby has publicly highlighted the jam United and the US aviation sector has been put in by the FAA, and by Trump.

In April, as the world watched and waited for the next shoe to drop in Trump’s tariff strategy, Kirby offered not one but two earnings estimates, depending on whether the US president’s moves triggered a recession or not.

Trump, in his first 100 days in office, has imposed hiring freezes across government, stripped federal employees of job protections and fundamentally downsized the US government while centralising White House power.

The head of the US Department of Transportation, Sean Duffy – an ex-congressman, prosecutor and former reality TV star, natch – has announced a plan expected to cost tens of billions of dollars to fix the US air traffic control system within four years. Trump supports the plan.

But the devil is in the delivery.

And to be sure, many air traffic controller bodies around the world are in the process of rebuilding staff. Airservices Australia, for example, is recruiting and training controllers. “We expect controller numbers to be back to surplus capacity by mid-year,” a company spokesman said.

But in the US, the problem is longstanding and deep-seated. Now uncertainty abounds for Americans and visiting travellers alike.

And it’s not just the fear of accidents. It’s also the waiting, the delays and the disruptions on the ground that mark so much travel in the US.

As for Newark Liberty Airport, Kirby cut back flights in light of the safety scare and issued two messages exhorting regulators to take further actiondespite his insistence that it’s safe. Not everyone agrees.

William McGee, a senior fellow for aviation and travel at the American Economic Liberties Project, told NPR he just didn’t “see the seriousness and the sense of purpose from this administration” to address the FAA problems.

Despite Kirby’s commentary on the FAA and US aviation, he is supportive of Trump’s aspirations to bring back well-paid jobs to the US, saying the goal is “laudable”. He notes that United is “one of the few companies left in the country that creates the kind of jobs where you can make a six-digit income, you can support a family, buy a house and [send] your kids to college, even if you only have a high school education”.

Kirby says he is taking a wait-and-see approach to Trump on the economy and tariffs. Speaking the day after Trump announced a reduction in tariffs with China, Kirby said: “Everyone should kind of take a breath because we’re not at the end game yet. We’re not at the new normal yet”.

Whatever the outcome, United is betting big on the future. After being the only American airline to fly to Australia through COVID lockdown, United is piling on more capacity for flights to Australia.

Already, from November to March, United says it was the largest carrier between the US and Australia as measured by available seat miles.

While the majority of those flights were Americans visiting Australia, Australians travelling to the US are well represented.

United flies between Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne from its Los Angeles and San Francisco hubs. In December, it will begin a service from San Francisco to Adelaide.

Even if air travel is becoming more difficult in the US because of creaky infrastructure and delays, United is evolving with the times. A small example: the United app allows you to track the progress of the flight, then provides updated gate information, down to a floor map of the airport you arrive at.

The effect is not just to remove some uncertainty and confusion but also gives an added sense of control in an experience – air travel in the US – that is increasingly marked by a feeling of helplessness among delayed and diverted passengers.

In the realm of long-haul, United is lifting its game to attract more of those dollars.

At the Duggal Greenhouse in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, United organised an event that included segments of its new Polaris Studio class seating, displays of bigger video screens, samples of new food – and drink including Aperol Spritzes – talks by executives, walk-throughs and talks by subject-matter experts, all while United’s corporate versions of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue played on speakers. There was even a supply of the airline’s signature ice cream sundaes.

Before Kirby took to the stage to announce ambitious improvements in seating, voices began chanting on one side of the room. They grew louder as flight attendant union-members burst into the venue, chanting: “What do we want? A contract, When do we want it? Now!”

For a Trumpian America in convulsions, it somehow seemed on-brand. Is a renewed focus on higher wages part of the “new normal”?

But the fear and loathing in US politics, along with questions about governance, create anxiety for visitors to the US.

While anger and concern for Trump’s tariffs, and his threats to Canada and Greenland remain, like so many other things in the Trump era, what was a certainty turned to something less sure.

Reports of huge falls in arrivals coincided with Trump’s first 100 days of chaos.

US International Trade Administration data show the number of Australians travelling to the US actually rose 1 per cent to 89,363 in April over the previous year. In the four months to April, the number edged down 0.2 per cent over the same period in 2024.

The same figures show the number of Europeans visiting the US fell 15.9 per cent in the year to March compared with the same period in 2024.

But over the first four months of the year, aside from Canada, it’s not clear the backlash is sustained. European visitors to the US rose 11.5 per cent in the year to April.

The difference possibly arose from Easter, a major travel holiday in Europe, having fallen in March last year, skewing expectations for this year’s statistics.

Still, the Trump factor remains.

The US president and his administration relish their roles as disruptors.

And they are disruptors coming after decades of American politics that frequently allowed industries an outsized influence in their own regulation.

There is disruption aplenty in US aviation. Now, no matter who is president, the country needs effective reform to address the problem.

As United’s Kirby noted: “Our delays and cancellations are almost all because of air traffic control.”

Chris Zappone travelled to New York as a guest of United.