Lingering government shutdown causing flight delays and making air travel ‘less safe’ every day

By Alexandra Skores, Aaron Cooper, CNN

Washington (CNN) — Every day of the federal government shutdown air traffic controllers calling out sick have caused flight delays, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Friday.

“It’s different every day,” he told reporters at a news conference at Philadelphia International Airport. “The average… is about 5% of our delays come from staffing shortages with air traffic controllers. We’ve gone up as high as 53% of the delays… because of staffing shortages.”

On Friday, five air traffic control facilities were short-staffed, including the control tower in Newark, TRACONs which handle flights approaching and departing Houston and Newark, and centers, which handle high altitude flights around Atlanta and Denver.

There have been 215 staffing shortages reported since the start of the shutdown, more than four times the number reported on the same dates last year. Air traffic controllers, like Transportation Security Administration screeners, are required to work during the government shutdown but are not being paid.

“Their paycheck is going to be a big fat zero,” Duffy said. “There’s great frustration. There’s anxiety because as any one of you, you look at the expectation that a paycheck comes in and then you plan for that.”

Controllers, approximately 10,800 federal workers, will receive the first $0 paycheck on October 28. On October 14, they received a partial paycheck, about 90% of the normal total, for hours worked before the shutdown started.

The lapse in government funding makes air travel “less safe,” according to Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the union which represents controllers.

“As this shutdown continues and air traffic controllers are not paid for the vital work that they do… that leads to an unnecessary distraction, and they cannot be 100% focused on their jobs, which makes this system less safe,” he said. “Every day that this shutdown continues, tomorrow, we’ll be less safe than today.”

Duffy noted the FAA will slow planes down or cancel flights if they cannot be operated safely.

“If we don’t have enough controllers, if we have controllers that are more stressed and less able to do the job… we will reduce the capacity of airplanes taking off and landing, or we will cancel flights,” Duffy said. “I’m less concerned about you getting there on time. I want you to be safe.”

This week, staffing shortages were reported in control towers in Austin, Chicago-O’Hare, Nashville, Newark and Reagan National airport, as well as FAA centers in Albuquerque, Cleveland, Denver, Fort Worth, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Jacksonville, New York and Washington, DC. The facilities in Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Las Vegas, Philadelphia and Houston that handle flights approaching or departing the area were also short-staffed.

Duffy also warned while future air traffic controllers studying at the FAA academy will be paid for the next couple of weeks, the money will run out soon which would be “cataclysmic” for them.

“Controllers in the academy, and some who have been given spots in the next class of the academy are bailing. They’re walking away,” he said. “They’re asking themselves why do I want to go into a profession where I could work hard and have the potential of not being paid for my services.”

The nation needs about 3,000 more air traffic controllers, and the increased enrollment at the academy is part of the agency’s effort to “supercharge” hiring.

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