‘Patriot Bonus’ Sparks Outrage: Just 2.5% of FAA Air Traffic Controllers Qualify For Trump’s $10,000 Payout
- Only a tiny fraction of America’s air traffic controllers will receive President Trump’s new $10,000 “patriot bonus” for not skipping a single day through the historic 43-day government shutdown.
We now know just how many air traffic controllers employed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) didn’t skip a single day of work during the historic government shutdown, that meant exempted federal employees had to work without pay for a record-breaking 44 days.
How do we know this? Because the FAA has found $7.76 million to pay 776 air traffic controllers and technicians with perfect attendance during the shutdown, a bonus of $10,000 each.
Only 2.47% of Controllers Qualified for the Bonus
Of the 776 workers who are eligible for the bonus, only 353 were air traffic controllers. The remaining workers are technicians who maintain the equipment used by air traffic controllers.
For context, the number of air traffic controllers receiving the bonus represents just 2.47% of the 14,264 air traffic controller workforce currently employed by the FAA.
The $10,000 payment has been dubbed the ‘patriot bonus’ because the idea was conjured up by President Trump on November 10 in a long post on his Truth Social account in which he described those air traffic controllers who hadn’t taken any time off during the shutdown as “GREAT PATRIOTS.”
The payment is proving divisive as Trump launched an attack on the 94.5% of air traffic controllers who did take at least one day off during the shutdown, saying they “didn’t step up to help the U.S.A against the FAKE DEMOCRAT ATTACK that was only meant to hurt our country.”
Trump Praises ‘Great Patriots’ and Blasts Those Who Took Sick Leave
“You will have a negative mark, at least in my mind, against your record. If you want to leave service in the near future, please do not hesitate to do so, with NO payment or severance of any kind,” Trump slammed in his rambling post.
“You will be quickly replaced by true Patriots, who will do a better job on the Brand New State of the Art Equipment, the best in the World, that we are in the process of ordering.”
The President had been reacting to a spike in sick calls from air traffic controllers that was putting mounting pressure on the national airspace system.
Why did air traffic controllers call out sick?
In a bid to relieve that pressure, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy had developed a controversial plan to slash flights by as much as 10% at 40 key airports across the United States.
Some air traffic controllers were taking sick leave to take on second jobs and earn some money during the extended shutdown, while others were nothing more than ill.
Announcing the $10,000 bonus for air traffic controllers with perfect attendance, Duffy said the award was “an acknowledgement of their dedication and a heartfelt appreciation for going above and beyond in service to the nation.”
Transportation Secretary Defends Bonus as Recognition of ‘Dedication’
“These patriotic men and women never missed a beat and kept the flying public safe throughout the shutdown.”
Sean Duffy
A similar bonus scheme has already been paid to hundreds of TSA agents who also didn’t miss a single day of work during the shutdown. That bonus scheme was funded from carryover funds from the Department of Homeland Security’s annual budget.
Rather than encouraging exempted federal workers to show up for work in the event of another shutdown, however, the bonus scheme could have the exact opposite effect.
Could the bonus backfire if there’s another shutdown?
Air traffic controllers know that the shutdown was only brought to an end when the national airspace system started to show real strain, and travel chaos over the Thanksgiving Holiday period was looming on the horizon.
Rather than struggling to work every day during an open-ended shutdown, it’s not unrealistic to think that many more controllers would call out sick en masse within days of another lapse of federal funding.
Do you think air traffic controllers should be paid if there’s another shutdown?
Pretty biased reporting here, to try and paint a reward for meritorious service as a bad thing.
It’s violative of policy to burn sick leave to work another job (which you say some did), so those folks are coming out ahead if they don’t get investigated and disciplined. By the way, those folks ARE getting backpay for the falsely-claimed sick time…which is part of the issue underlying the policy. It ends up being a double-dip with the taxpayer on the hook for the false claim.
All that aside, you appear to fail to understand that the purpose of an award like this is to retrospectively recognize individual, internally-motivated greatness. It’s not necessarily intended to influence future behavior. As a comparison, I don’t think any medal of honour recipients were actively thinking, “if I do this selfless act of bravery, maybe I’ll get the medal of honour!” while doing the things they did.
But yeah, super “divisive”. LOL
Ok Lars, did it ever occur to you that the job is not as black and white as a single hour of leave is. There are many men and women on the job that dedicated themselves to the job for a month and a half without being paid. They continuously worked shifts shorter than ever before but kept things running as best as they could. Many people worked shifts with little to no breaks but then took an hour or a day to take care of a sick kid or family member. They even took the leave knowing that the shift was good that day because enough people showed up. For those individuals to be told that they are unpatriotic and that a coworker that was out on travel for business and not working traffic the entire time is getting the bonus is discouraging. So yes this so called bonus has created more bad than good.