Skepticism reigns about putting Trump's pilot in charge of FAA
- 'The only person that thinks it's a good idea, from what I gather, is the president,' one aviation lobbyist says.
The private jet of then-President-elect Donald Trump is pictured. | Getty Images
A federal agent walks past the private jet of then-President-elect Donald Trump at LaGuardia Airport in New York. | Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images
President Donald Trump has had an unusually tangled relationship with the Federal Aviation Administration, which grounded one of his campaign planes for a paperwork violation, refused for decades to route jet traffic away from Mar-a-Lago, and even dumped his name from navigation points in the Florida skies after he described Mexican immigrants as rapists.
Now the agency and the aviation industry are facing the prospect that the FAA's next chief could be Trump's personal pilot - a man who, according to the president, shares his opinion that the nation's top aircraft regulator has bungled a multibillion-dollar air traffic control upgrade.
But the notion of Trump's pilot as FAA chief is drawing skepticism from people in the industry, who note that recent leaders of the technocratic, $16 billion-a-year agency have typically been people with long experience either in the government or running large organizations. In contrast, John Dunkin's experience since 1989, according to a Smithsonian documentary, has been working "on and off" for Trump as his personal pilot. Dunkin is the Trump Organization's director of aviation operations for a fleet that includes a Boeing 757, a Cessna Citation X business jet and three Sikorsky helicopters.
"The only person that thinks it's a good idea, from what I gather, is the president," said one lobbyist with aviation clients, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to speak more freely about political matters. "I think it'd be a tough confirmation."
Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.), who would take the lead in vetting any FAA nominations, said Monday evening that Dunkin may have a difficult road to confirmation if the White House chooses him.
"I'd prefer that they send somebody up that we can confirm easily. I've conveyed that to them," Thune said. "I'm sure that the Democrats would probably want to make it challenging" for Dunkin.
With Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) being treated for cancer away from Washington, and the Senate controlled by a threadbare 51-seat GOP majority, just one Republican can stop a nomination in its tracks if there is uniform Democratic opposition.
"They say he's got good qualifications and all that," Thune said of Duncan. "But there are other people that I'm aware of that they've been vetting [who] would be very good in that position."
An administration official confirmed Monday that Dunkin is on the list of potential FAA leaders, along with acting FAA Administrator Dan Elwell and Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), both of whom are also pilots.
Whoever wins Trump's blessing will oversee the safety of tens of millions of air travelers in the U.S., who have enjoyed an unusual decline in accidents for more than a decade - the country hasn't seen a fatal airline crash since 2013, and the last one involving a U.S. passenger airline was in 2009. Trump has also endorsed a major change for the agency, a controversial proposal that would split up the FAA and move its thousands of air traffic controllers into a private, nonprofit corporation.
The White House refused Monday to say anything more about Dunkin's potential appointment, which Axios first reported Sunday night. But the rumor, which has been circulating for months, has left people in the industry puzzled about whether it's a serious possibility or a trial balloon that's now about to be deflated.
A former FAA official said Dunkin's name has been floated on and off since Trump took office. "I thought we had heard the last of it but here we are again," he said.
Indeed, Dunkin's name has been circulating amid insider chatter about the FAA slot for several months, though some in the industry had expressed doubt he was an actual contender. One lobbyist who attended a party with Dunkin some months ago told POLITICO that he heard that the pilot had been promoting himself for the job that night.
Some were still skeptical of his chances Monday.
"Imagine the heyday the Senate would have in confirmation hearings," another lobbyist said, also requesting anonymity to speak openly about a potential FAA administrator. "'Where did you fly Donald Trump? Who was on the plane with him?' I think it's very unlikely he makes the cut, but anything is possible in this administration."
But an aviation official said Trump appears to be "very serious about Dunkin," though some in the administration hope Elwell will get the nod.
"We do not know Dunkin personally yet," the official said. "However, we do believe he is a serious candidate as the prevailing thought is that if Trump can get him in there, without too much resistance, he will."
In its comments to Axios, the administration played up Dunkin's other experience, saying he's "managed airline and corporate flight departments, certified airlines from start-up under FAA regulations, and oversaw the Trump presidential campaign's air fleet."
Dunkin wrote at length about the challenges of managing Trump's campaign flights in a December article for Professional Pilot magazine.
"I will never forget the day that Mr Trump, now the President, walked into the cockpit of his Boeing 757, sat down on the jump seat and said 'John, I am going to run for President,'" wrote Dunkin, who said that by the end of the campaign "we had visited 45 states, flown 370,725 miles, landed in 203 cities, operated 722 legs, burned over a million gallons of fuel and met some of the most incredible people along the way."
Flying was just part of the job, however. "On every leg we cleaned 4 bathrooms, wiped down all the gold and wood, cleaned the seats, vacuumed the carpet, and re-stocked the snacks," he wrote. "We all had our designated tasks and worked in perfect harmony to get the job done."
It didn't always go entirely smoothly, however: In April 2016, The New York Times revealed that Trump's Cessna had been ferrying him around to campaign stops for months even though its registration had lapsed in January. It's unclear whether Dunkin played any role in that error, which led to the jet being grounded temporarily.
In February 2016, Trump's 757 - nicknamed Trump Force One - had to make an emergency landing in Nashville after the pilot aboard reported engine problems while the candidate was en route to a campaign stop in Arkansas.
Trump has publicly said he thinks the top FAA job should go to a pilot. Obama-era Administrator Michael Huerta had previously been the FAA's deputy administrator, and before that held posts elsewhere in DOT, worked at port organizations for New York City and San Francisco, and been managing director of Salt Lake City's organizing committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics.
"I think it maybe would be good to have a pilot, like a really good pilot who knows what's going on," Trump told a meeting of airline and airport executives a year ago. He added: "I would think you need a very sophisticated person in that job and somebody that, frankly, being a pilot would be helpful."
Trump also praised "my pilot" - presumably Dunkin - during the same meeting, calling him "a real expert." And he portrayed the pilot as agreeing with him that the FAA has badly mismanaged a multibillion-dollar air traffic upgrade known as NextGen, a long-running project that aims to replace ground-based radar with a satellite-based system.
"Because my pilot, he's a smart guy, and knows what's going on," said Trump, who would later cite NextGen as a reason for splitting up the FAA. "He said the government is using the wrong equipment and instituting a massive, multibillion-dollar project, but they're using the wrong type of equipment."
The FAA - at the time still led by Huerta - immediately put out a news release implicitly contradicting Trump. "NextGen is one of the most ambitious infrastructure and modernization projects in U.S. history," the agency said, contending it "has resulted in $2.7 billion in benefits to passengers and the airlines to date."
Huerta left the FAA last month after serving out his five-year term as administrator.
Trump has had many more reasons over the years to be irked at the FAA. In 2015, shortly after he began his run for president with a swipe at Mexican immigrants, the FAA announced that it would be stripping Trump-themed names from three aerial navigation points near Palm Beach International Airport - "DONLD," "TRMMP" and "UFIRD" - in favor of more "noncontroversial" choices.
Trump has also complained repeatedly over the decades about all the commercial jets that fly over his Palm Beach mansion from the nearby county-owned airport. Most recently he filed a $100 million lawsuit against the county in January 2015 in which he accused the airport director of "using his influence with the Federal Aviation Administration to get air traffic controllers to aim planes at Mar-a-Lago," The Palm Beach Post reported at the time. Trump claimed it was "revenge" for his previous litigation against the county.
Trump's victory gave him a temporary win in that battle: The FAA forbids planes from flying over Mar-a-Lago while he's staying there.
Like Dunkin, the other potential FAA nominees would fulfill Trump's demand for someone who has flown in a cockpit.
Elwell, the agency's acting administrator, is a military and commercial pilot who was appointed deputy administrator in June. His resume includes stints at American Airlines, the Aerospace Industries Association and Airlines for America. He was the FAA's assistant administrator for policy, planning and environment in George W. Bush's administration. Of the names currently rumored to be on the short-list for administrator, Elwell seems to be most favored by the aviation industry.
Graves, the Republican congressman from Missouri, is a pilot and long-time supporter of the general aviation industry. But he's also made it clear that he is seeking the House Transportation Committee chairmanship, now held by Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), who is retiring from Congress next year.
A Graves spokeswoman said his office is "not aware that he is being considered" for the post.
"However, I can see why folks may speculate that given his background," she said.
Typically, FAA administrators have been aviation industry or federal government professionals, with patronage appointments few and far between in recent years.
Huerta's immediate predecessor, Obama appointee Randy Babbitt, was a former airline pilot and executive in the Air Line Pilots Association, a major union for airline pilots. (Babbitt resigned from the FAA after being charged with drunken driving, but the charges were later dropped.)
Babbitt replaced George W. Bush appointee Marion Blakey, who assumed the FAA's top post after stints at DOT, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board. She replaced Jane Garvey, who had served at the Federal Highway Administration and as director of Boston's Logan International Airport.
