A United Airlines flight arrives at O’Hare International Airport in ChicagoAmerica’s busiest airports, including those in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and Chicago, are set to face hundreds of flights starting Friday due to the government shutdown, according to a list distributed to airlines and obtained by The Associated Press.
The Federal Aviation Administration’s order to reduce air traffic at 40 of the busiest airports across the U.S. includes locations across more than two dozen states and will likely extend far beyond those targeted locations.
With just hours to go, airlines were scrambling Thursday to figure out where to cut back, and travelers with weekend plans were nervously waiting to see if their flights would take off as scheduled.
Some airlines planned to focus on reducing routes to and from small and medium-sized cities.
“This will have a noticeable impact on the US air transportation system,” said industry analyst Henry Harteveldt.
The Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday it will reduce air traffic by 10 percent across “high-volume” markets to maintain travel safety as air traffic controllers show signs of stress during the shutdown.
Affected airports include busy connecting hubs and those in popular tourist destinations, including Atlanta, Denver, Dallas, Orlando, Miami and San Francisco. In some major cities, such as New York, Houston and Chicago, multiple airports will be affected.
The Federal Aviation Administration is imposing flight cuts to ease pressure on air traffic controllers who are working without pay during the government shutdown and who have increasingly canceled work. The move also comes as the Trump administration ramps up pressure on Democrats in Congress to end the shutdown.
Controllers have already missed out on a full paycheck and are set to not receive anything again next week as the lockdown period continues.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has delayed flights at times when airports or other facilities have control device shortages.
Notification of passengers about the cancellations is scheduled to begin Thursday. Airlines said they would try to minimize the impact on customers, some of whom will see weekend travel plans disrupted without warning.
United, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines said they will offer refunds to passengers who choose not to travel, even if they bought normally non-refundable tickets.
The president of Frontier Airlines recommended travelers buy backup tickets from another airline to avoid being stranded.
The cuts could also disrupt package deliveries because there are two airports with major distribution centers on the list — FedEx operates at the airport in Memphis, Tennessee, and UPS in Louisville, Kentucky, the site of this week’s deadly cargo plane crash.
The cuts could affect up to 1,800 flights, or more than 268,000 passengers per day, according to estimates from aviation analytics firm Cirium.
Airlines are used to dealing with thousands of flights being cut at short notice during severe weather, but the difference now is that these lockdown cuts will continue indefinitely until safety data improves.
“I am not aware in my 35-year history in the aviation market that we have faced a situation where we would take this type of action,” FAA Administrator Brian Bedford said on Wednesday. “We are in new territory in terms of the government shutdown.”
The shutdown is already stressing airlines. Air traffic controllers have been working without pay since the lockdown began on October 1. Most work mandatory overtime six days a week, leaving little time for side jobs to help cover bills and other expenses unless called upon.
Increasing staffing pressures are forcing the agency to act, Bedford said.
“We cannot ignore that,” he said.
Bedford and Transport Minister Sean Duffy said they would work with airline executives to figure out how to implement the cuts safely.
Major airlines, aviation unions and the broader travel industry are urging Congress to end the shutdown, which on Wednesday became the longest on record.
The shutdown puts unnecessary stress on the system, disrupts travel and damages confidence in the American air travel experience, said Jeff Freeman, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association.
Duffy warned earlier this week that there could be chaos in the skies if the lockdown lasts long enough for air traffic controllers to lose their pay next week.
Kelly Matthews, who lives in Flat Rock, Michigan and frequently travels for work, said she has canceled most of her upcoming trips to avoid any travel hiccups. She said she understands why federal airport employees stopped showing up.
“You can’t expect people to go to work when they haven’t been paid for over a month now,” she said. “I mean it’s not that they don’t want to do the job — it’s that you can’t pay for gas and day care and everything else.”
Worsening staffing at controllers Staffing at regional control centers managing multiple airports and at individual airport towers can decrease, but does not always lead to flight disruptions. Throughout October, flight delays due to staffing issues were largely isolated and temporary.
But this past weekend brought some of the worst staffing issues since the start of the lockdown.
From Friday through Sunday evening, at least 39 air traffic control facilities reported potential staffing limits, according to an Associated Press analysis of operations plans shared through the Air Traffic Control System’s command center system. This number, which is likely to be an undercount, is well above the average on the weekends before the lockdown.
