US air travel is showing signs of strain as lawmakers remain at loggerheads in Washington

Travellers at Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey, US. The White House tightened its pressure on congressional Democrats as a US Government shutdown lurched into a second week, saying it would give the holdouts another chance to agree to the spending bill before initiating mass firings of federal workers. Photo / Michael Nagle, Bloomberg via The Washington Post

United States air travel is starting to show signs of strain as lawmakers remain at loggerheads over a government shutdown that has stretched into a second week.

Flight delays caused by air traffic control staffing shortfalls have rippled across the country, impacting airports in Dallas, Chicago, Nashville, and outside Washington, DC, as controllers are forced to work without pay.

The Trump Administration has also warned that flights to small, rural airports could end as soon as this weekend before additional funding was found to secure them until early November.

The increase in delays at airports is largely tied to more air traffic controllers calling in sick as the shutdown drags on, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a Fox Business TV interview today NZT.

Typically, the amount of delays caused by controller staffing shortages is about 5%, a figure that’s now grown to 53%, he said.

“It’s a small fraction of people who don’t come to work that can create this massive disruption,” Duffy said.

The US air travel disruptions, which hurt both passengers and airlines, are among the most visible examples of how the shutdown is inconveniencing Americans.

They present a political liability that could serve as a catalyst to the White House and Congress cutting a deal to fund the Government.

While there’s limited appetite in Congress for now for a quick resolution, airport chaos has previously helped prod the Government into reopening.

In 2019, as the nation’s longest-ever shutdown reached 35 days, air traffic controllers at critical facilities in Virginia and Florida called in sick, slowing air travel across the eastern seaboard and triggering a temporary halt to flights into and out of New York’s LaGuardia Airport, Philadelphia International Airport, and Newark Liberty International Airport.

That same day, US President Donald Trump backed down, agreeing to sign a continuing resolution and reopen the Government.

Applying pressure

The Transportation Security Administration has also warned that passengers going through security checkpoints could experience longer waiting times.

“Travellers are facing longer TSA lines and flight delays. Airports are reducing flights and we’ve seen entire control towers go dark,” the US Travel Association said in a statement yesterday.

The group estimates that the shutdown is costing the American travel economy US$1 billion ($1.74b) in lost spending each week.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy during a news conference at Newark Liberty International Airport on October 6. Photo / Michael Nagle, Bloomberg via The Washington Post

The bulk of the shutdown pain has so far been borne by federal workers - some 750,000 who are furloughed and more than one million who continue to report to work - who have their income suspended until the shutdown is over.

The air travel system’s vulnerability to cracking even with just slightly higher numbers of air traffic controllers and security personnel failing to show up for work demonstrates how lawmakers could soon face severe political outrage from constituents.

While flight delays and cancellations have ticked up as the shutdown has progressed, they haven’t yet swelled to unusual highs.

Lawmakers after the 2019 government funding lapse acknowledged that disarray at major airports heightened the urgency to end the shutdown, especially as polls showed the public increasingly blamed Trump and Republicans for the chaos.

The GOP this time around is also sounding the alarm on air travel, while trying to foist the blame for the shutdown on Democrats.

“While air traffic controllers are going to continue to serve in their posts, thankfully, critical safety inspections are going to stop, increasing risk for air travellers,” House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana told reporters yesterday. “That affects everybody.”

All work, no pay

The longer shutdowns persist and the more pay controllers and TSA agents miss, the more apt they are to take sick leave, based on trends from past shutdowns.

Those missed pay days make it harder for many to meet basic living expenses, including childcare or commuting costs, prompting them to stay at home.

The average TSA screener makes about US$51,000 a year, according to 2023 data from the Bureau of Labour Statistics.

TSA, in a since-deleted statement from the 2019 shutdown, said its rate of unscheduled absences reached as high as 10% - up from about 3% during the same period the year before.

The agency said that many of its employees reported that they weren’t able to show up for work “due to financial limitations”.

The TSA in a statement said yesterday that it has “not experienced any delay in operations due to callouts and remains fully capable of facilitating safe and secure travel for passengers”.

The shutdown only adds more stress on air traffic controllers who should be focused on keeping the airspace safe rather than worrying about whether they’ll get their next pay, Duffy said during a press conference at Newark Liberty International Airport.

They still need to show up to work, he said in today’s Fox Business interview.

Those who aren’t dedicated to their jobs will be at risk of losing them, he added.

Members of Congress representing rural areas - including large swathes of upstate New York, Alaska, and western Kansas - got a brief reprieve after Duffy announced that US$41 million was secured to keep the Transportation Department’s Essential Air Service running to early November.

That programme provides subsidies for routes to small airports that wouldn’t otherwise be profitable for the airlines.

The Transportation Department had earlier warned that funding for the programme would lapse on and any carriers who scheduled flights beyond that day would “do so at their own risk”, according to a letter seen by Bloomberg.

Some airlines, including American Airlines Group Inc. and SkyWest Inc., said in statements that they intended to keep routes operating in the near term, regardless.

- With assistance from Aashna Shah and Caitlin Reilly.

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