DEI actually looks like it was doing a lot of good.

Thanks for pointing this out Republicans!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who wants to go to Newark?

The NE air corridor is over capacity. Any delays or cancellations cascades through the US. This is why high speed trains in the NE corridor would improve air travel throughout the country.

Taking out one major airport or reducing its capacity will cause delays, full flights and increase airfares. All the neighboring airports are capacity.

True, but these issues didn't happen when DEI was in charge, did it?

Anonymous wrote:I fly direct. There’s no chance I would go to Newark. I also don’t fly United. Virtually no one in the DMV cares about this.

I care. I do fly United and will pay more to fly IAD directly to Europe, and then change planes in Europe if I can’t get a direct flight to my destination. Because I’m an anxious traveler, don’t do well with missed or cancelled flights and am more likely to have a smooth connection in most European airports. But, through Newark is definitely cheaper, with more options. Of If I was on a tighter budget, it would be hard to avoid Newark.

^^ SSA here again. And DOgE is literally in the buildings. In ours, people back from RTO lock their laptops, but sometimes don’t grab their PIV card when they go to the restroom. DOGE is walking through several times a day and firing people who leave their PIC card in when they step away on the spot. In a building with two layers of security to get in. Even if the laptop is locked. No warning, no second chance. You forget to grab it once, fired on the spot for “PII violations”. And these are “mission critical jobs” that take years to learn.

Anonymous wrote:Maybe it’s not a great idea to intentionally try to get federal employees to quit their jobs after all

+1. I’m SSA. The decline in our customer service has been front page news— and they still have VERA open for the entire angency until the end of 2025 and offered DRP2 to some mission critical components to his week. The big plan? Assignments GS-14 HR and IT folks in HQ to GS-9 or GS-11 field office jobs that take 2 years to learn. Because HR and IT people know nothing about claims processing. They may as well be new hires. But, they do retain grade for 2 years and pay indefinitely. So now, you are paying GS-14 salaries to learn GS9 or GS11 jobs. Because all of SSA has been treated like cr@p, and anyone who could VERA has. (That would be people 20 years in who know what they are doing).

The could have been less punitive and made things less miserable and only offered VERa and DRP to places they wanted cuts. But instead, they arbitrarily are cutting 7000 jobs. And they don’t care where those come from. Then reassign non-mission critical to mission critical, even if there is zero overlap. Because Congress is putting a Lott of pressure on SSA not to RIF. So instead, they are just making it so miserable people quit.

It will get worse before it gets better. We still aren’t seeing the fallout of DRP2 and reassignments happening now. And if they follow through with Elmo’s plan to use AI to rewrites our COBOL and ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE !!! Core systems in a month, our whole computer system will crash and take months to get back online and checks won’t go out.

This is why you pay attention to unsexy stuff like system upgrades. The data mining and work conditions are terrible for us and our claimants. The planned system upgrades could be catastrophic:

https://www.wired.com/story/doge-rebuild-social-security-administration-cobol-benefits/

I fly direct. There’s no chance I would go to Newark. I also don’t fly United. Virtually no one in the DMV cares about this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who wants to go to Newark?

It's been said that there are no stupid questions, but this is proof that is not true.

This question is a great example of MAGA worldly knowledge. They are SO ignorant about how everything works

Anonymous wrote:Who wants to go to Newark?

It's been said that there are no stupid questions, but this is proof that is not true.

Anonymous wrote:Who wants to go to Newark?

The NE air corridor is over capacity. Any delays or cancellations cascades through the US. This is why high speed trains in the NE corridor would improve air travel throughout the country.

Taking out one major airport or reducing its capacity will cause delays, full flights and increase airfares. All the neighboring airports are capacity.

Anonymous wrote:Newark has good connecting flights. We had to fly through Europe when we were going to Italy last year.

*NEWARK, not Europe!

Newark has good connecting flights. We had to fly through Europe when we were going to Italy last year.

Anonymous wrote:Who wants to go to Newark?

It's easier to get to than kennedy or LaGuardia from my parents house.

Who wants to go to Newark?

Maybe it’s not a great idea to intentionally try to get federal employees to quit their jobs after all

issues and staffing shortages, the CEO of United Airlines said the company has no choice but to unilaterally cancel flights from its schedule.

Starting this weekend, United will cancel 35 roundtrip flights per day from its Newark schedule, United CEO Scott Kirby said in a letter to customers.

Three times this week, flights through Newark faced significant delays for a combination of issues, compounded by ongoing runway construction at the airport.

The FAA has experienced equipment issues at its Philadelphia TRACON center, which helps manages the airspace around Newark Liberty, causing delays for passengers. The FAA said it has also had air controller staffing shortages.

"Unfortunately, the technology issues were compounded as over 20% of the FAA controllers for EWR walked off the job. Keep in mind, this particular air traffic control facility has been chronically understaffed for years and without these controllers, it’s now clear – and the FAA tells us – that Newark airport cannot handle the number of planes that are scheduled to operate there in the weeks and months ahead," Kirby said in his letter.

In response to question about Kirby's letter, the FAA said, "The FAA is slowing arrivals and departures at Newark Liberty International Airport due to runway construction at Newark and staffing issues at Philadelphia TRACON, which guides aircraft in and out of the airport."

Experts said there are no signs the problems would ease as travel picks up going into the summer.

How long can this go on? The NE air traffic cause about 90% of the delays in US air traffic.