Trump endorses plan to remove 30,000 FAA workers from payroll

Washington

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump is planning to lop more than 30,000 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) workers from the federal payroll, a move that gives fresh momentum to an effort that stalled in Congress last year.

The proposal is included in Mr Trump's 2018 budget, which would cut funding for the Transportation Department by 13 per cent.

The move would address two themes at the core of White House strategy: contracting the size of the federal workforce and putting a costly federal programme in private hands.

The more than 30,000 federal workers include 14,000 air traffic controllers and about 16,000 other FAA employees, many of whom work on a project called NextGen. The Nex…