The U.S. government shutdown is causing major air-travel disruptions. Starting Friday, the Transportation Department will cut scheduled flights by 10% at 40 major airports unless Congress reaches a funding deal.
The Federal Aviation Administration will begin cutting the number of flights in the "high traffic" parts of the country as the government shutdown grinds on and local airports have reported staffing shortages, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Wednesday.
“There is going to be a 10 percent reduction in capacity at 40 of our locations,” Duffy said. “This is about where’s the pressure and how do we alleviate the pressure.”
He said the reduction in capacity would start Friday.
The development comes as the federal government shutdown has entered its second month and in the wake of a weekend during which dozens of American airports reported hundreds of delays.
More than 5,000 flights traveling from and to U.S. airports were delayed on Sunday alone, and the Transportation Security Administration said it screened nearly 2.7 million people around the country.
And on Monday evening, there were 2,885 delays on flights traveling within, to and out of U.S. airports and 70 more were canceled, according to FlightAware.com.
An anonymous high-altitude air traffic controller from the Midwest told National Public Radio (NPR), referring to Thanksgiving: "I think you're going to see probably the worst day of travel in the history of flight." (Story Here)
FlightRadar24 says:
We don't yet know exactly how these cuts will be metered across the different markets, but a 10% overall cut in scheduled commercial flights is in the neighborhood of 5,000 flights per day. https://t.co/7xnnKlYKCG
