During an interview with NY1’s “Inside City Hall” on Monday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is “more concerned about safety in the subways than he is safety in the skies, and that’s his job, to make sure our skies are safe.” And he should “focus on his job as well.”
Hochul said, [relevant remarks begin around 11:40] “I want to know what’s going on. In this new administration in Washington, where there have been cuts, where there has been this sense that we really don’t need government to be there to protect us or work for us anymore, this whole re-thinking of the federal government’s [responsibility]. One of their responsibilities is to keep our skies safe. And that has not been happening. You look at what happened in Washington…the crash in the Potomac, what’s happening in New York, there’s been so many airplane crash[es] and near-misses.”
She continued, “So, air traffic controllers, run by the FAA, we should be looking to Washington and saying — asking questions of them, what is going on here under your watch, Mr. Secretary of Transportation, who’s more concerned about safety in the subways than he is safety in the skies, and that’s his job, to make sure our skies are safe. I’m continuing to focus on safety with the mayor in the subways, and guess what? They are dramatically improved since they had been before the pandemic, our numbers are — still, no crime is acceptable, we’re going to keep working. We’re not done. But dramatically better. So, I wish he’d focus on his job as well.”…