Despite signs from the Senate that the US government shutdown could soon end, cancellations and delays continue to disrupt air travel across the country.
Flight tracking platform FlightAware reported that on Thursday the average delay at New York’s LaGuardia Airport was 1 hour 16 minutes, at Chicago O’Hare 44 minutes, and at Las Vegas’s Harry Reid International Airport 46 minutes. The platform also recorded at least 1,700 cancellations and more than 5,000 delays for US domestic and international flights that day.
American Airlines said weekend cancellations affected about 250,000 customers. Airlines for America, the trade group for major carriers, said staffing shortfalls have disrupted travel for more than four million passengers since the shutdown began on October 1.
The Federal Aviation Administration instructed airlines to cut 4 percent of daily flights at 40 major airports starting last week over air traffic control safety concerns. That reduction is scheduled to rise to 6 percent on Tuesday and to 10 percent by November 14.
Air traffic control staffing has been strained. President Donald Trump urged controllers to return to work, warning that pay would be docked for those who did not report and saying he would reward those who stayed on the job, including promising $10,000 to controllers who showed up — though the funding source was not specified. FAA chief Bryan Bedford said that since the shutdown began, 20–40 percent of controllers at the 30 largest airports were not showing up on any given day. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said staffing problems worsened over the weekend, with Saturday the worst day since the shutdown started.
The FAA also announced a suspension of general aviation operations at 12 major airports, including Reagan National (not Dulles), Chicago O’Hare (not Midway), Houston George Bush Intercontinental (not Hobby), Denver, Seattle and Boston. That action escalated a prior directive that limited general aviation by up to 10 percent at designated “High Impact Airports,” as authorities sought capacity to preserve commercial operations.
Advocates called for further measures to free capacity, arguing for grounding private jets. “You can easily find the capacity you need by shutting down the top 25 private airports, many of which are within driving distance of the affected commercial airports,” Erica Payne, president of Patriotic Millionaires, told Al Jazeera, adding: “They [the FAA] should ground all private jet travel.”
Al Jazeera asked the Department of Transportation for a timeline and logistics for restoring normal operations once the shutdown ends. The agency did not answer those questions directly, instead providing links, social media posts and videos that blamed Democrats and cited controller shortages, without offering a clear plan.
Airline stocks moved as the disruptions continued. As of 2:30pm in New York (19:30 GMT), American Airlines shares were down more than 2 percent since the market opened. United was down about 0.3 percent, Alaska more than 0.7 percent, and JetBlue down 0.5 percent. Delta was roughly flat, while Southwest was up about 0.4 percent.
