The government shutdown has been hard in many ways, including the closure of some national parks and now the impact of air travel due to air traffic control staffing issues. We can’t put the plane in the sky without the folks there to monitor air pathway safety! Delays and outright closures are being reported all across the U.S. Here are some of the airports that are most affected during this time.
One of the hardest hubs hit was Nashville International Airport, where air traffic control had to close for five hours last night, according to CNN, delaying flights into the city by two hours. Similarly, last night was a problem night for airports in Houston (including both Hobby and George Bush International), Newark, Las Vegas, Denver, Detroit, Phoenix, Jacksonville, Boston, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Indianapolis.
But the airport the most affected was in southern California. At Hollywood Burbank Airport, the entire tower shut down on Monday night from 4:15pm to 10pm, according to ABC7 News. That resulted in travelers facing delays of two to three hours.
The sad reason behind all this is that air traffic controllers are considered essential employees and must work even during a shutdown when they aren’t being paid—and therefore many of them are individually calling in sick. They are prohibited by federal law to stage strikes or sickouts (a large group of people calling in sick at once).
Some airports were able to manage without the air traffic control booth completely full, such as Chicago’s O’Hare International—although the staffing shortages meant that ground delays for the flights averaged about 41 minutes last night, according to Chicago Sun Times.
National Air Traffic Controllers Association president Nick Daniels told CNN that the air traffic control system is already working with unreliable equipment (gulp) and that the system is overall quite fragile, even before the staffing issue.
Moreover, both the TSA and the Federal Aviation Administration are already experiencing staffing shortages, including being short 3,000 air traffic controllers, according to ABC7.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told reporters on Monday that air traffic controllers are “thinking about, ‘Am I gonna get a paycheck?’ So now what they’re thinking about as they’re controlling our airspace is, ‘How am I gonna pay my mortgage? How am I gonna make my car payment?’”
And that’s not what we want them to be focusing on when lives are at stake.