Peter Paul Buttigieg doesn't really have anything in his resumé that would indicate he knew how to run an entire nation's worth of critical transportation infrastructure. But he was hand-picked by Joe Biden to by the Secretary of Transportation, so it felt like, I dunno, maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt.
After two years, though, I think we're all out of benefits and the only thing we have left is doubts.
I mean, here's earlier this month, which was bad enough:
On Monday, a total of 204 Southwest flights, or 4%, were canceled, making it the American carrier with the most cancellations that day, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware. Almost 43% of its flights were delayed. As of Tuesday afternoon, the airline had 59 flights canceled, which account for 1% of its scheduled flights.
"Cancellations and delays from Monday were related to weather and air traffic control-related issues," Southwest Airlines told USA TODAY. "We resumed normal operations from our operational challenges over the Christmas holiday on Friday of last week."
Air traffic control is overseen by the Federal Aviation Administration, which is a subsidiary of the Department of Transportation, which is headed by, you know, Pete Buttigieg. One would hope he could manage these affairs a bit better than this, but I suppose everyone drops the ball once in a while, right?
Once is one thing. But twice in the span of one week feels a little bit like overkill, you know?
Thousands of flight delays and cancellations rippled across the U.S. early Wednesday after computer outage led to a grounding order for all departing aircraft by the Federal Aviation Administration.
The FAA is working to restore what is known as the Notice to Air Missions System.
NOTAMS is of course a critical piece of infrastructure. Is this the work of cyber-terrorists? Some inept mismanagement of this important technology? Nobody knows yet, but you can sure the nation's top men are on it:
But hey, if your flight is repeatedly delayed and/or cancelled, you can always take a good ol' Amtrak, right? Right?
An Amtrak Auto Train, a specialized train allowing passengers to take their vehicles with them to drive after their rail journeys, was headed from Washington, D.C., Monday and expected to arrive at the final destination of Sanford, Florida, at about 10 a.m. Tuesday, the Washington Post reported.
Instead, after the train made its scheduled stop in Lorton, Virginia, at about 5:30 p.m. Monday, it was diverted because of the derailment of a CSX freight train, coming to a halt in wooded area near Denmark, South Carolina.
There are conflicting reports of how long the delay was; so far as we can tell the train was stopped in the rural South Carolina boondocks for more than 20 hours but less than 30.
It's bad enough to be stalled out for an entire day. It's worse, apparently, if you're stalled out on an Amtrak train:
As one hapless passenger reported:
-The crew isn't legally able to operate the train any longer
- No replacement crew.
- No more meals.
- Dogs haven't been allowed out to use the bathroom.
- The original delay was caused by a CSX train derailment.
And remember, this isn't the first time this has even happened on Buttigieg's watch:
If it's this bad with the planes and trains, I'm nervous to see what happens to the busses.
