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US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Friday that it makes a lot of sense to hire gamers to address a shortage of air traffic controllers.
“If you think just what these gamers are doing on screens, and they’re talking and there’s a lot of things going on — they’re used to that. And that’s actually what you’re doing in a tower,” Duffy said at Semafor World Economy in Washington, DC.
The Transportation Department announced a week ago that it would begin a recruitment campaign targeting gamers, releasing a promotional video urging them to “level up” by joining the department.
Duffy noted on Friday that 6,000 people had applied since the application window opened at midnight that day, with the portal closing upon reaching 8,000 applicants.
“We’ve had a flood of young people coming in that want to be air traffic controllers,” he said, adding, “They have to be qualified. We have to go through an assessment process. But this has been wildly successful.”
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Duffy also addressed the ongoing shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the TSA, that has caused delays and long lines at airports. US President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month diverting funds from ICE to TSA, but there’s still looming uncertainty over congressional negotiations.
“My hope is that we don’t have to have something really bad happen in this country before people come to their senses,” Duffy said.
“The problem is when you’re leveraging the safety of the American people, or you’re leveraging air travel — I get that there’s a political disagreement — but is this the appropriate forum in which to have that disagreement?” he asked. “I would say that it’s not.”