Airports across America are returning to normal after federal officials throttled plane traffic and left passengers stranded during the government shutdown.
During the height of the government shutdown, 40 airports saw their traffic cut by the Federal Aviation Administration. The rollback was due to shortages in air traffic controllers, who were not paid but continued to work during the longest government-funding stoppage in U.S. history.
FAA officials announced that starting at 6 a.m. Monday, operations had returned to pre-shutdown levels.
“I want to thank the FAA’s dedicated safety team for keeping our skies secure during the longest government shutdown in our nation’s history and the country’s patience for putting safety first,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said. “Now we can refocus our efforts on surging controller hiring and building the brand new, state of the art air traffic control system the American people deserve.”
According to FlightAware, on Monday, there were more than 650 delayed flights in the U.S. and 30 cancellations - but they were due to weather or other issues.
Previously, the total number of flights entering, exiting and traveling within the United States had been slashed by a staggering 6 percent in a bid to keep air travel safe during the shutdown. At the time, Duffy suggested that up to 10 percent of flights could be grounded before Congress reached a breakthrough in ending the shutdown.
According to the FAA statement, the number of staffing triggers caused by a shortage of available air traffic controllers fell to just one on November 16. On the worst day of the shutdown, November 8, that number rocketed to 81 staffing triggers.
In the statement, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford thanked the teams who worked through the shutdown.
“Today’s decision to rescind the order reflects the steady decline in staffing concerns across the NAS and allows us to return to normal operations,” he said. “I am grateful for the hard work of the FAA safety and operations teams and for their focus on the safety of the traveling public.”
Concerns over the reductions reached a peak last week, as Americans eyed flight schedules ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. However the government reached a funding agreement allowing the cuts to end.
Duffy had told NewsMax’s Finnerty show that it would take “up to a week to get back to normal, which is right before significant Thanksgiving travel,” sparking fears that the aviation chaos could continue even after the shutdown ends.
However, Mike Arnot, a spokesperson for the aviation analytics company Cirium, told The Guardian that federal workers being paid as normal will stabilize flight timetables ahead of Thanksgiving.
"Now that the controllers are going to get their back pay, finally, it probably will relatively quickly re-establish stability in the U.S. airline industry,” he said. “Thanksgiving shouldn’t be impacted at all.”
Passengers over the weekend seemed to notice few lasting impacts of the changes.
"I really wasn't affected at all. I had a clean, straight-through transaction getting down here. I didn't have any issues and it doesn't seem like I'll have issues going back, I hope," Bruce Clark told Tampa Fox 13.
At Chicago’s O’Hare airport, travelers were also relieved to avoid lasting impacts.
"Feels great to get everything back where it should be, get people in and out especially coming up on the holidays, that's great news," Kevin Brown said to ABC 7.
As the shutdown began to draw to a close, Donald Trump floated the idea that he might give $10,000 to every air traffic controller who worked through the entirety of the government closure. However, while appearing on The Ingraham Angle, he revealed that he has no idea where this money would come from.
“I don’t know. I’ll get it from someplace...,” he said. “I always get the money from someplace regardless, it doesn’t matter.
“I do a lot of bonuses for people because it’s really something that… It’s like the American way, when you think about it.”
He also raged at the air traffic controllers who called in sick during the shutdown in a furious Truth Social post and even suggested their pay could be “substantially docked.”
“For those that did nothing but complain, and took time off, even though everyone knew they would be paid, IN FULL, shortly into the future, I am NOT HAPPY WITH YOU,” he seethed. “You didn’t step up to help the U.S.A. against the FAKE DEMOCRAT ATTACK that was only meant to hurt our Country.
“You will have a negative mark, at least in my mind, against your record.”
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