Trump’s Personal Pilot Meets Key Quality for FAA Job: Loyalty
- Skepticism by lawmakers may make pilot’s path difficult
- John Dunkin has worked for Trump and his businesses since 1989
John Dunkin
Photographer: Andrew Milligan/PA Images via Getty Images
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If President Donald Trump is seeking loyalty from whomever he appoints to oversee the nation’s aviation system, his personal pilot fits the bill.
"The biggest part of my job is to make sure that everything happens seamlessly behind the scenes for Mr. Trump,” pilot John Dunkin said in a 2013 Smithsonian Channel documentary about the then-private citizen’s Boeing Co. 757 with its gold-plated trappings. “So we might be scrambling, but when Mr. Trump shows up, he just steps on the aircraft and be off to his destination."