The government shutdown is snarling air travel. Officials say it could get worse

Travelers across the U.S. are beginning to feel the impacts of the government shutdown, as air traffic control staffing shortages disrupt flights across the country.

A dozen Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) facilities saw staffing shortages on Monday, according to an evening advisory from the agency.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy held a press conference at one of them, Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, where he blamed the nationwide delays on a “slight tick-up in sick calls” by air traffic control workers.

Duffy said controllers are concerned about working without pay during the shutdown, with some considering taking on second jobs, like calling in sick to drive for Uber. And he warned that disruptions could worsen until the government reopens.

“If we see there’s issues in the tower that are affecting controllers’ ability to effectively control the airspace, we’ll reduce the rate, and you’ll see more delays or you might see a cancellation,” Duffy said. “I’m willing to do that before we’re willing to risk anyone’s life in the air.”

In a statement shared with NPR, the FAA says it “slows traffic into some airports to ensure safe operations” when there are increased staffing shortages. It directs travelers to its website for real-time flight impacts for every U.S. airport.

Politicians on both sides of the aisle are blaming each other for the shutdown and ensuing travel snafus. The government shut down on Oct. 1 after partisan disagreements, largely over health care subsidies, prevented the Senate from passing a funding bill.

Air traffic controllers played a key role in ending the last government shutdown, which stretched on for 35 days, from December 2018 to January 2019.

Only an FAA-described “slight increase” in sick leave at two air traffic control facilities threw major East Coast airports into chaos and increased pressure on the Trump administration to ultimately reach a spending deal with Congress.

Long-standing controller staffing shortages — exacerbated by insufficient hiring, extensive training timelines and high dropout rates — have remained a problem in the years since. As Monday’s events show, even a small number of sick calls can make a big impact.

Which airports were affected?

According to the FAA, Monday’s delays affected air space across the country, including Phoenix, Denver, Chicago, Indianapolis and Washington, D.C.

The airports in Newark and Denver both saw ground delays due to staffing issues, according to the FAA. Flights were delayed an average of 53 minutes out of Newark and 39 minutes out of Denver, though some were held up by closer to two hours.

Perhaps the biggest disruptions were felt at Hollywood Burbank Airport near Los Angeles, which saw average ground delays of two and a half hours. It had no air traffic controllers for over five hours on Monday, according to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Newsom blamed President Trump in a tweet, writing, “Burbank Airport has ZERO air traffic controllers from 4:15pm to 10pm today because of YOUR government shutdown.”

A different aviation control facility, Southern California TRACON, ran operations remotely from San Diego during that period.

Burbank Airport has not responded to NPR’s request for comment. It said in a Monday night tweet that its operations were continuing, and urged travelers to check with their airlines about potential disruptions.

What are air traffic controllers saying? 

At Duffy’s Newark press conference, Nick Daniels, the president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), specifically steered clear of politics as he called for an end to the shutdown.

“We need to bring this shutdown to a close so that the Federal Aviation Administration and the committed aviation safety professionals can put this distraction aside and focus completely on their vital work,” Daniels said.

NATCA, which represents more than 20,000 air traffic controllers, says many of its members were already working 10 hours a day, six days a week, and the shutdown has put them under further strain by furloughing safety support staff and suspending support programs.

Its website has a notice warning its members that “participating in a job action could result in removal from federal service,” saying such behavior is not only illegal but “also undermines NATCA’s credibility.”

In a statement to NPR, NATCA said nearly 11,000 fully certified controllers remain on the job, and it is normal for a few of them to call in sick on any given day.

But it also says Monday’s events underscore the fragility of the country’s aviation system and the “urgent need to accelerate training and hiring.”

Since the start of the second Trump administration, Duffy has pushed for an overhaul of the country’s air traffic control systems — parts of which still rely on floppy disks and run Windows 95 — and prioritized efforts to “supercharge” hiring.

Duffy said Monday that the shutdown hampers those efforts, now and potentially in the future.

“It has a longer-lasting impact on our ability to make up the ground in the shortages that we have right now with air traffic controllers,” he said. “This is having great impact … on our system at a time when we’re trying to reduce the stress.”

How else could the shutdown affect air travel? 

The government shutdown could also have steep consequences for rural airports.

Duffy warned that the Essential Air Service (EAS), a federal program that subsidizes commercial service to rural airports in about 170 U.S. communities, could run out of funding as soon as Sunday.

“Every state across the country will be impacted by the inability to provide the subsidies to airlines to service these communities,” Duffy said, adding that Alaska will be the hardest hit.

The White House proposed slashing the program’s funds by more than 50% earlier this year, despite the fact that it has longstanding, bipartisan support in Congress, as Duffy himself acknowledged on Monday.

Natasha Marquez, a spokesperson for the Regional Airline Association, told NPR in a statement that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the EAS supported more than 17,000 U.S. jobs and enabled the operation of hundreds of daily flights from airports with an average distance of 200 miles from the nearest medium or large hub airport — meaning many travelers could feel the impacts.

A spokesperson for Alaska Airlines, which holds contracts for six communities in Alaska, told NPR over email that if the government shutdown continues beyond Sunday, “we would be relieved of our obligations as an EAS provider to those communities and the [Department of Transportation] would likely suspend reimbursements.”

It is not immediately clear when passengers would notice a change. Airlines typically seek reimbursement from the government at the start of the month for the previous month’s flights, according to the Department of Transportation.