Evita Duffy-Alonso said her father had been “sounding the alarm” about air traffic control problems “since day one”.
The daughter of a top Trump official got involved in Friday’s aviation meltdown.
Evita Duffy-Alonso, the 27-year-old daughter of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, weighed in on the rare nationwide ground stop that threw airports into chaos — deflecting blame from her father.
“It’s time for Congress to fund air traffic control!! » Evita wrote in an X post on Friday evening.
“@SecDuffy sounded the alarm from DAY ONE. We are spending billions of taxpayer dollars on things – especially overseas – that don’t matter. Our leaders must put AMERICA first and prioritize home BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE! ” she added.
On Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration abruptly announced that it had ordered a nationwide shutdown at all airports due to “extraordinary circumstances” and “security reasons.”
“All departing traffic must remain stopped on the ground until further notice,” indicates an air traffic control notice. “Incoming international flights will be managed on a case-by-case basis.”
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The nationwide ground control took effect at 3:54 p.m. Friday and was lifted about four hours later. More than 1.5 million passengers were expected to depart after the ground stop began, according to aviation data company Cirium.
Passengers were left scrambling after a nationwide ground stop.
Friday’s incident was only the second nationwide ground stop since the attacks of September 11, 2001. A similar incident occurred in January 2023, when the FAA suspended domestic departures for about 90 minutes due to a system outage.
At a news conference, Duffy and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin blamed old air traffic control technology and router overload. They made clear that the ground stop was not related to a threat to the United States or the widespread Microsoft outage this week.
More than 1.5 million passengers were expected to leave after the ground stop came into force.
Duffy was less than reassuring when asked if Americans should expect the same scenario to happen again.
“Is this exact thing going to happen again? I don’t know if this exact scenario will happen, but I had New York a few months ago; I had Newark a year and a half ago,” he said, referring to past airline crises.
Trump officials had little information to offer during a news conference Friday on the crisis.
Duffy, in a message later echoed by his daughter, called on Congress to cough up more than $50 billion.
“It’s the greatest country, and for that matter, with the greatest president,” he said. “Let’s donate the money needed to solve this very real problem.”
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