Head of the Federal Aviation Administration to resign, allowing Trump to pick his successor

The head of the Federal Aviation Administration, who has led a tougher enforcement policy against Boeing since a panel blew off a Boeing jet in January, said Thursday that he will step down next month, clearing the way for President-elect Donald Trump name his choice to lead the agency.

Mike Whitaker announced his pending resignation in a message to employees of the FAA, which regulates airlines and aircraft manufacturers and manages the nation’s airspace.

Whitaker has dealt with challenges including a surge in close calls between planes, a shortage of air traffic controllers and antiquated equipment at a time when air travel, and a need for tougher oversight of Boeing.

“The United States is the safest and most complex airspace in the world, and that is because of your commitment to the safety of the flying public,” Whitaker said in the message to employees. “This has been the best and most challenging job of my career, and I wanted you to hear directly from me that my tenure will come to a close on January 20, 2025.”

Whitaker took the helm of the FAA in October 2023 after the Senate, which is frequently divided along partisan lines, voted 98-0 to confirm his selection by President Joe Biden. The agency had been without a Senate-confirmed chief for nearly 19 months, and a previous Biden nominee withdrew in the face of Republican opposition.

FAA administrators — who hold a job that has long been seen as nonpartisan — generally serve for five years, but that has not happened recently. Whitaker's predecessor, Stephen Dickson, also stepped down early before fulfilling his term.

Whitaker had served as deputy FAA administrator during the Obama administration, and later as an executive for an air taxi company.

Less than three months after he became administrator, a Boeing 737 Max lost a door-plug panel during an Alaska Airlines flight in January, renewing safety concerns about the plane and the company. Whitaker grounded similar models and required Boeing to submit a plan for improving manufacturing quality and safety.

Whitaker said the FAA's oversight of Boeing had been “too hands-off — too focused on paperwork audits and not focused enough on inspections."

In August, the FAA said it had doubled its enforcement cases against Boeing since the door-plug blowout.

Whitaker was praised Thursday by senators from both parties before a hearing on the FAA's air traffic control system, which has been plagued by a shortage of controllers and old equipment that failed in January 2023, causing more than 1,300 flight cancellations and thousands of delays in a single day.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who had led the opposition to Biden’s first pick to lead FAA, said that the unanimous confirmation vote for Whitaker last year was a “testament to his experience, his judgement and his apolitical nature. He has ably led the agency during a challenging period.”

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who heads the Senate aviation subcommittee, said Whitaker’s oversight of Boeing has been essential. “Our aviation system is safer because of his service,” she said.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, which will consider Trump’s nominee to replace Whitaker, said the successor “needs to be ready on day one to continue the job of restoring the FAA’s safety culture and providing real oversight of the aviation sector.”