FAA administrator will resign before Trump takes office

The head of the Federal Aviation Administration, Mike Whitaker, announced on Thursday that he is stepping down at the end of the President Biden’s term, leaving the agency without crucial leadership as ongoing safety challenges and questions about oversight of Boeing persist. Whitaker’s resignation comes just over a year into his five-year term that, if it had been fulfilled, would have spanned President-elect Donald J. Trump’s second administration. The length of the appointment is meant to provide stability and minimize political interference within the nation’s premier aviation safety agency. “This past year, air travel rebounded to near record highs but cancellations were at record lows — a testament to your excellence and dedication,” Whitaker wrote in a message to the agency’s employees. “It is not just me who recognizes what you do — the tens of the thousands of people who fly every day do, too.” Whitaker is stepping down just as the deputy administrator, Katie Thomson, is also departing, leaving an unexpected leadership void atop an agency that has struggled in recent years to find a leader willing to complete the five-year appointment. He is leaving as the safety regulator contends with a number of issues: the nation’s crumbling aviation infrastructure, the persistent problem of near collisions between commercial planes and manufacturing problems at Boeing. The storied plane maker’s 737 Max 8 jets were involved in two crashes during Trump’s first term, killing 346 people. And just months into Whitaker’s tenure, on Jan. 5, the door plug of an Alaska Airlines plane — a different 737 Max model — blew off in during a flight. The agency has increased the number of on-site inspectors in the company’s factories, along with slowing their production of commercial jets to allow closer scrutiny of their production.<br/>