A US government order to make drastic cuts in commercial air traffic amid the government shutdown has taken effect, with major airports across the country experiencing a significant reduction in schedules and leaving travellers scrambling to adjust their plans.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has said the move is necessary to maintain air traffic control safety during a federal government shutdown, now the longest recorded and with no sign of a resolution, in which air traffic controllers have gone without pay.
While airlines have started to reduce domestic flights, global hubs such as JFK in New York and LAX in Los Angeles will be affected, meaning delays and sudden changes that could have a cascading effect on international air traffic. The FAA said the reductions would start at 4% and ramp up to 10% by 14 November. The reductions are set to be in effect between 6am and 10pm and impact all commercial airlines.
“We are seeing signs of stress in the system, so we are proactively reducing the number of flights to make sure the American people continue to fly safely,” said Bryan Bedford, the FAA administrator.
As of Friday morning, more than 800 US-linked flights had been cancelled, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. The data showed about four in five cancelations globally were related to the US.
Transportation secretary Sean Duffy warned on Friday that cancellations could rise to 15% or 20%. “If the shutdown doesn’t end relatively soon, the consequence is that more controllers don’t come to work,” he told Fox News, as US airspace became a potent proverbial weapon in the political standoff.
Since the beginning of the shutdown, which began last month after a breakdown between Republicans and Democrats over spending plans, air traffic controllers have been working without pay, which has already caused delays.
A potential agreement between the parties to reopen the government appeared to crumble again on Friday after Democrats in the Senate, emboldened by Tuesday’s favorable election results for them, rejected an emerging proposal that would have linked a stopgap funding bill known as a continuing resolution to three full-year appropriations bills.
The US transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, has announced 40 “high-traffic” airports across the country that would need to reduce flights. A 4% reduction in operations at those airports has taken effect but this will increase to 10% over the next week.
Duffy has accused Democrats of being responsible for any “mass chaos” that ensues, even though the shutdown is the result of both Republicans and Democrats refusing to agree to a deal.
The director of the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett, told Fox Business on Friday that he did not discount a broader impact on US economic activity from the air space restrictions.
“Business travel is a really big, important part of air travel – and if business travel isn’t happening then those are deals that aren’t being cut and hotel rooms that aren’t being filled,” he said.
“Travel and leisure is a place that’s really being heavily hit right now and if it continues to get hit, if the air travel thing goes south for another week or two, then you could say that they would have at least a near-term downturn,” Hassett added.
The cuts could represent as many as 1,800 flights and upwards of 268,000 seats combined, according to an estimate by the aviation analytics firm Cirium.
With deep antagonism between the two political parties, Donald Trump’s government has beaten the previous record for the longest shutdown, which was set during his first term in 2018-19.
United, Southwest and Delta airlines began cancelling flights on Thursday evening.
Scott Kirby, the United Airlines CEO, said in a statement that the airline “will continue to make rolling updates to our schedule as the government shutdown continues so we can give our customers several days’ advance notice and to minimise disruption”.
Delta Air Lines said it would comply with the directive and “expects to operate the vast majority of our flights as scheduled”.
The airspace disruption comes two weeks before the Thanksgiving holiday – typically the busiest travel period of the year – and raises the pressure on lawmakers to reach a deal to end the shutdown.
The Guardian spoke with more than a dozen travelers and flight staff at New York’s John F Kennedy international airport, but most reported no disruption to travel plans. One passenger told the Guardian that she arrived at JFK three hours earlier than planned, citing “everything people are saying on social media”.
At one of the gates, an American Airlines flight attendant who was scheduled to fly to Indianapolis said her flight had not been delayed. “I’m still hoping to get out!” she told the Guardian. Meanwhile, Inderjeet Chamber, a flight attendant for Republic Airways, said she had originally been scheduled to work three flights on Saturday, but was informed Friday morning that two of them had been canceled. “I’m only working at one of them,” she said.
As of late Friday afternoon, a total of 43 flights had been canceled across the airport.
Politically inspired flight chaos, with its potential to continue into or beyond the Thanksgiving holiday later this month, has exacerbated pre-existing structural issues in air travel scheduling, airspace constraints and safety considerations, including outdated air traffic control equipment and a long-term shortage of air traffic controllers.
“The FAA is a slow-moving bureaucracy,” said Michael Taylor, a travel analyst at JD Power. “It has a daunting task keeping planes from colliding with each other, and they do a really good job with that, but it makes them ultra-conservative in terms of the technologies they could be using. It’s not like your living room where everything is digital. The FAA still relies on technology invented for the second world war.
“Under-staffing is long-term problem and that’s not going to change with a political solution to the shutdown,” he adds. Coupled with underlying technological issues, politicians have learned that travel is an unique opportunity to apply pressure. “This is a leverage point that politicians can use to try to drive public opinion towards one party or the other. It’s a shame but that’s where we are today,” Taylor added.
The government shutdown has left shortages of up to 3,000 air traffic controllers, according to the administration, in addition to at least 11,000 more receiving zero wages despite being categorised as essential workers.
“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 has said. “We’re in new territory in terms of government shutdowns.”
Maya Yang contributed to this report
