President Trump's drive to shrink the federal workforce has touched about every agency,

including the FAA, which is responsible for air safety.

It comes at a time when safety is getting a lot of attention because of recent incidents,

including January's mid-air collision of a passenger jet and an army helicopter.

An Associated Press, NORC Center for Public Affairs poll last month found that

64% of Americans questioned said flying is very safe or somewhat safe. That's down from 71%

last year. Isaac Stanley Becker is a staff writer for the Atlantic. The headline on his story

in the last issue is the FAA's troubles

are more serious than you know. Isaac, what's the scale of the layoffs at the FAA? How big are they?

This is still taking shape. And the primary two ways that the workforce is being reduced is through

the dismissal of probationary employees and then this offer of early

retirement that we saw at the end of January. Now there are some legal hangups around the dismissal

of the probationary employees and we're seeing that play out in the courts. But it could be quite

extensive was what my reporting found. I was able to get a hold of some internal FAA data

that showed that more than

1,300 people at the agency replied to that offer of early retirement, with most of them

quite interested in taking it. And that included some people in quite critical safety roles,

aviation safety technicians, assistants, quality assurance specialists, engineers, and people who do a lot of the

really important background work that helps those frontline safety workers do their jobs

correctly and accurately. We asked the FAA about the cuts in aviation safety. They said the

FAA continues to hire and on onboard air traffic controllers and safety professionals,

including mechanics and others who support them.

...