
Hank Krakowski was forced out as head of the federal air traffic control system after recent embarrassments.
WASHINGTON — The seed that foreshadowed Hank Krakowski’s downfall Thursday was planted three years ago on a November day in a Texas hotel ballroom when he first addressed the assembled managers of the nation’s air traffic controllers.
He talked about serving pilots and he talked about working with airline dispatchers, but he made virtually no mention of the grinding day-to-day duties done by the men and women who shepherd 47,000 flights through the nation’s skies each day.
Krakowski was forced out as head of the federal air traffic control system after a series of recent embarrassments, including controllers sleeping on the job, and a year in which errors soared.
He leaves behind a system that Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) head Randy Babbitt says is in the process of transformation but that critics describe as demoralized by almost eight years of turmoil and change. T
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