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Former Congressman and now transportation secretary nominee Sean Duffy sailed through a relatively uneventful confirmation hearing on Wednesday during which U.S. Senators from both political parties provided marching orders to the would-be secretary on a host of aviation topics, ranging from Boeing and the air traffic controller shortage to essential air service and new entrants.
As previously detailed by The Air Current, Duffy’s appointment in November was a surprise for much of the industry, which just three weeks later learned that Federal Aviation Administrator Mike Whitaker would step down on Jan. 20 in concert with President Donald Trump’s inauguration, compounding an upheaval in permanent leadership at federal transportation agencies.
Although the Fox News host that the industry watched in the months leading up to his nomination exhibited strong convictions and politically provocative viewpoints, the Duffy on display Wednesday — flanked by his wife and eight of nine young children for the entire three-hour hearing — seemed to strike a much more measured, bipartisan tone, receiving pleasantries from both sides of the aisle.
Related: Sean Duffy, poised to create a shakeup, sets his sights on DOT
Nowhere was this more apparent when Sen. Eric Schmitt, Republican of Missouri, asked Duffy how he would “refocus” the Department of Transportation (DOT) away from an “obsession the Biden Administration has had with DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion].” In March 2024, Duffy claimed on Fox that a 2024 United Airlines 737 runway excursion in Houston occurred due to an outsize focus on DEI in hiring practices used by the aerospace industry. (The National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the accident, has not drawn any such conclusions to date.)
“When we talk about safety … we want the hiring decisions to be based on merit,” Duffy said in response, echoing a view that also was frequently on display at the more contentious hearing for defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth. Yet, he added that he would support “a conversation about what communities we are drawing from,” a departure from the hard-line perspective he had on Fox and even from the one held by President Trump himself. Neither Duffy nor Schmitt provided any specific examples during this hearing of occurrences at the FAA or DOT where hiring was not done on merit.
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