Flight delays continued at U.S. airports Sunday amid air visitors controller shortages as the federal government shutdown entered its second month, with Newark airport in New Jersey experiencing delays of two to a few hours.
New York Metropolis’s Emergency Administration workplace mentioned on X that Newark delays usually ripple out to the area’s different airports.
Vacationers flying to, from or by way of New York “should expect schedule changes, gate holds, and missed connections. Anyone flying today should check flight status before heading to the airport and expect longer waits,” the social media submit added.
George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Dallas Fort Value Worldwide Airport and Chicago O’Hare have been additionally seeing dozens of delays and one or two cancellations, together with main airports in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver and Miami, in response to FlightAware.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been warning that vacationers will begin to see extra flight disruptions the longer controllers go with out a paycheck.
“We work overtime to make sure the system is safe. And we will slow traffic down, you’ll see delays, we’ll have flights canceled to make sure the system is safe,” Duffy mentioned Sundayon CBS’S “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
He additionally mentioned he doesn’t plan to fireside air visitors controllers who don’t present up for work.
“Again when they’re making decisions to feed their families, I’m not going to fire air traffic controllers,” Duffy mentioned. “They need support, they need money, they need a paycheck. They don’t need to be fired.”
Earlier in October, Duffy had warned air visitors controllers who had referred to as in sick as a substitute of working with out a paycheck throughout the shutdown risked being fired. Even a small variety of controllers not displaying up for work is inflicting issues as a result of the FAA has a essential scarcity of them.
The Federal Aviation Administration mentioned Friday on X that almost 13,000 air visitors controllers have been working with out pay for weeks.
Staffing shortages can happen each in regional management facilities that handle a number of airports and in particular person airport towers, however they don’t all the time result in flight disruptions. In accordance with aviation analytics agency Cirium, flight knowledge confirmed robust on-time efficiency at most main U.S. airports for the month of October regardless of remoted staffing issues all through the month.
Earlier than the shutdown, the FAA was already coping with a long-standing scarcity of about 3,000 air visitors controllers.
