How about that flipped over plane?
This is a job for the Anonymous Transit Reporter.
Hello everyone. I hope you’re having a nice Friday. I’m on a plane to Las Vegas with broken TV’s — good thing I have a copy of Graydon Carter’s new book! My only goals for the weekend are to win some money in poker, enjoy a few hours in the spa, see what all the buzz is about at Delilah, and hear The Chainsmokers play one of my favorite songs, iPad. We’ll see how much I get done in 48 hours.
Today’s letter is very much a weekend read. It includes a column from our Anonymous Transit Expert about falling planes (lovely to edit while I’m on one). I also have a conversation with
about why he’s bringing the newsletter that he’s been writing for six years over to Substack, ’s decision to write about her GLP-1 use, and more. I didn’t cover the Yankees facial hair news, but that’s what the comment section is for.
Feed Me’s Anonymous Transit Expert is helping me build a modern Metro Section. In his last column, he debated whether offices are So Back. The Anonymous Transit Expert has to stay anonymous because he has a Real Job in a Real Office, but you’ll be seeing more of him around here in his column, Stand Clear.
In Defense of the Battered FAA
You don’t notice it until it doesn’t work. If you’re a little apprehensive about flying domestic lately, you’re not alone as a creature hardwired to recognize patterns. The dutifully well-informed might wring their hands as newsreels, Twitter feeds, and TikToks spin our grim fascination with accidental death into attention and attitude changes in the wake of the deadliest air accident in two decades. Through repeated patterns of presentation, whether curated by a team of editors who swear they’ve abandoned “if it bleeds, it leads” or a sophisticated Chinese algorithm so valuable Bytedance wouldn’t even seriously shop it around, a narrative emerges. It doesn’t have to be explicit to be present: there are more plane crashes now than before.
“It doesn’t have to be explicit to be present: there are more plane crashes now than before.”
A plane crashes every day. It’s because of woke, or because the agencies responsible for keeping the skies in order are both run by former Fox News personalities, or a diversity of other single clear and easily-parroted factors. This narrative would be worth pursuing, were it true. The facts are as follows:
This January saw the U.S. achieve the fewest fatal and non-fatal air accidents (tied with 2022 and 2013, respectively) of any January since the beginning of NTSB statistic publication in 1982. February, as of publication, is on the same pace.
Deaths from air accidents, if they continue at their current pace, which is unlikely, are up. This increase is entirely because of the tragedy of AA5342, which ended a 16-year run of no U.S. commercial carrier air accident fatalities.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), tasked with keeping chaos out of the skies, is desperately in need of investment, as it has been since before I was born. It’s also doing an incredible job with the resources it’s given.
What the hell does the FAA do, exactly?
Born in the dawn of the jet age, its original and singular task was to unify and standardize the communication systems aircraft use to navigate and talk to one another. Sounds simple. Today, its operating budget sits at approximately twenty-four billion dollars including mandatory Congressionally-appropriated funds, a little under a third of which is spent directly on air traffic control (it employs nearly every civil air traffic controller in the country) and aviation safety, the things for which the FAA is most widely known.
With the rest of its funds, it certifies the safety of every model of plane in the sky, and every pilot who flies them, and every technician who maintains them. It issues guidance for airport design standards. It creates rules governing how loud aircraft can be, or how much NOx they can emit. It levies penalties or other actions, for example the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max 8 that liked to fly itself directly into the ground, against airlines or manufacturers that break its rules. In extreme cases, its experts assist the Department of Justice in figuring out who to hold criminally liable when, hypothetically, an air vehicle explodes and sprays fuel all over a town. It funds R&D programs on engine efficiency, aerodynamics, pilot fitness, air controller fatigue, and a dozen other aviation-related areas of interest. And if your home airport has three gates and one security line, it bails out the operations of airports that would otherwise close their doors, providing access to air travel and cargo to communities that could not otherwise support them. It also regulates commercial spaceflight, a fact which some companies dislike so much they executed the purest example of regulatory capture I’ve maybe ever seen.
“Like its workforce (the average age of an FAA aviation safety employee was fifty-four years old in 2024, the average U.S. worker’s age is about forty-two), the systems and facilities that undergird the FAA are aging rapidly.”
Like its workforce (the average age of an FAA aviation safety employee was fifty-four years old in 2024, the average U.S. worker’s age is about forty-two), the systems and facilities that undergird the FAA are aging rapidly. Its buildings lack proper heating and cooling. In 2023, only 24% of its air traffic control systems were deemed better than “potentially unsustainable” by a Government Accountability Office risk assessment, and timelines to replace the equipment would see little impact until the 2030’s. Much ado has been made, especially lately, of its jarring and long-standing air traffic controller shortage, of which even the most uncharitable assessment related to DEI in hiring practices would leave the agency thousands short of its targets. The toll of stress, fatigue and overtime on the under-staffed controller corps is well-documented and widely panned as the cause of many of last year’s near-misses, and, pending the results of the NTSB investigation, speculated as a contributing factor in the AA5342 disaster. If you’re interested in a career in Air Traffic Control, you can start today at $45k after passing a civil service exam and skills evaluation, with preference provided if you’re a veteran with aviation experience or hold some educational aviation credential. I wonder why they’re having a tough time hiring.
The Infrastructure and Jobs Act (funds are still in limbo at the time of publication) was a well-timed but lukewarm start in addressing the FAA’s expanding resource needs, providing allocations for physical assets, personnel, and expansions of airport grant programs on a timeline of 5 years. The incoming DOGE’s currently un-FOIAble prescriptions will include, presuming they are aligned with the other agencies being shaken upside down until dollars fall out, some combination of tech implementation/modernization and regimented headcount reduction. The key difference in these reforms’ approaches, in my opinion, is the regard in which they hold federal employees. One underwhelms in its recognition of the need for investment in critical agency functions and the people who provide them. The other seems reductive in its simplification and thrust, and presumes that the proverbial bone contains, mostly, fat. I’m hand to heart trying to give the wunderkinder, technocrats, and computers unable to be held responsible for management decisions a fair shot, but I’m honestly very quickly running out of runway. The links in the preceding sentence had to be changed three times in one day before this column ran. With credit due to “move fast, break shit” for its recent innovations in gambling, food delivery, and money laundering technologies, I prefer not to be an uncompensated A/B test subject when the stakes are my money or well-being.
This weekend I’ll be finishing my second re-read of Michael Lewis’ The Fifth Risk. I have a love-hate relationship with Lewis, but I find that when I re-read his titles I enjoy, I learn something new. I’ll be listening to The Tragically Hip’s eponymous debut EP, and if I find the time watching Saturday Night on the recommendation of Teddy Kim.I’m not going anywhere except the bar, but if you happen to be I wish you a safe journey and a destination full of whatever it is you’re after.
