The government has been shutdown for a record 39 days, and many aspects of everyday life that hinge on government funding are feeling the pinch. One of the industries hit the hardest is air travel.
Due to the shutdown, travelers around the country are facing mounting lines at security checkpoints and thousands of flight delays and cancellations as air travel tries to operate in a restricted capacity.
As of 4 p.m. ET on Sunday, there were already more than 7,500 total delays within, into or out of the U.S., according to FlightAware data. Delta Airlines, which has already canceled more than 450 flights today told NBC News that more cancellations were expected.
202 cancellations Thursday; 1,025 cancellations Friday; 1,566 cancellations Saturday.
Saturday counted 7,531 delays and 1,566 cancellations, and Friday had 7,017 delays and 1,025 cancellations. For comparison, there were only 202 flight cancellations on Thursday, a day before the Federal Aviation Agency’s decision to reduce flights went into effect.
The flight cancellations are roughly at the level you would see in a light snow storm, according to United Airlines. But the delays and cancellations are only set to grow from here as the shutdown continues, and they might get even worse than expected due to an actual winter storm forming in the Midwest. “Dangerous to impossible travel conditions will develop” in some parts of Illinois on the night bridging Sunday to Monday due to the snow expected from the storm, according to the latest advisories.
In the event of a government shutdown, many federal employees lose their jobs. But some that are considered essential to the protection of life and property, like air traffic controllers and TSA agents, are required to work without pay or additional support staff. In the absence of their paycheck, many of these employees resort to additional work to make up for the loss. In many cases, the air traffic controllers—who were already working mandatory overtime six days a week—call in sick. As many as 20-40% of controllers are not showing up for work, according to FAA administrator Bryan Bedford’s estimates from earlier this week.
“We had 81 staffing triggers throughout the national airspace yesterday, that means controllers weren’t coming to work,” secretary of transportation Sean Duffy said Sunday on CNN. “It’s only going to get worse.”
Air traffic controllers are the backbone of safe air travel, and when they take off of work in droves, that puts pressure on an already fragile system.
4% last Friday; 6% by Tuesday; 10% this coming Friday.
Duffy and the FAA’s solution to that has been flight reductions at 40 major airports around the country. The reductions started at 4% on Friday, and if the shutdown continues, will inch up to 6% by Tuesday, Nov. 11, 8% by Nov. 13 and 10% by Nov. 14. The order only requires a reduction in domestic flights, but carriers can choose which flights to cancel on their own.
Duffy warned that the reductions could hike up to 20% if the shutdown continues, despite holiday travel looming in the horizon with Thanksgiving later this month.
“I look to the two weeks before Thanksgiving, you’re going to see air travel be reduced to a trickle,” Duffy said on CNN. The secretary had also warned of “mass chaos” at a press conference earlier this week.
The measures are certainly unprecedented.
“I’m not aware in my 35-year history in the aviation market where we’ve had a situation where we’re taking these kinds of measures,” Bedford said at a press conference this week.
The end could be near. According to CNN, Senate majority leader John Thune indicated that there might be an initial vote on Sunday for a working plan to reopen the government. The plan does not include an extension to the Affordable Care Act subsidies that Democrats have been negotiating for, but it reportedly guarantees a future Senate vote on them. Not every one is on board with just a promise though.
“I don’t think that the House Democratic Caucus is prepared to support a promise, a wink and a prayer from folks who have been devastating the health care of the American people for years,” House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries told NBC on Sunday.
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