US flight cancellations rise as Sean Duffy warns travel could reduce to a ‘trickle’ | US federal government shutdown 2025
Flight cancellations and delays will increase as airline travelers across the U.S. spend the weekend grappling with these issues at major airports across the country after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) mandated a 4% reduction in air traffic in response to the ongoing federal government shutdown.
If the shutdown continues, the FAA ordered airlines to cut 6% of flights on Tuesday and reduce the same to 10% by Nov. 14. Transport Secretary Sean Duffy warned He said flight disruptions could reach 20% if the shutdown continues and predicted Sunday that a “significant” number of people in the U.S. will not be able to celebrate upcoming holidays with their families if the shutdown is not resolved.
“You’re going to see air travel drop to a trickle,” Duffy said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. “There’s a lot of people who want to go back home for the holidays. They want to see their families… Listen, a lot of them won’t be able to get on a plane because there won’t be as many flights if this thing doesn’t reopen.”
The FAA’s requirement that airlines reduce 4% of daily flights at 40 “high-traffic” U.S. airports began Friday and represented an attempt to ease growing pressure on air traffic controllers. Like other federal employees, these controllers have gone unpaid for weeks during the longest government shutdown in history, now in its 40th day.
“We are seeing signs of stress in the system, so we are proactively reducing the number of flights to ensure the American public can continue to fly safely,” FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said in a statement earlier this week. Room in question He said 20% to 40% of controllers have not shown up for work in the past few days.
The first round of flight discounts led to about 800 cancellations on Friday and 1,460 on Saturday. More than 1,000 flights were canceled across the U.S. as of 9 a.m. Sunday, according to the flight tracking website. FlightAware.
On Sunday, Duffy told CNN that the US is “short of air traffic controllers” and is “trying to get more air traffic controllers into the towers and get them certified, but I’m short about 1,000 to 2,000 controllers.”
Airlines were offering customers full refunds for canceled flights.
National Air Traffic Controllers Association warns shutdown worsening employee famine And He said many controllers “are working 10 hours a week, six days a week, all without pay, due to ongoing staff shortages.”
“This creates significant distractions for people who are already engaged in highly stressful work,” they said. “Financial and mental strain increases risks within the National Airspace System, making the system less safe with each passing day of the closure.”
On Saturday, the union said it had delivered 1,600 handwritten letters to Congress from members calling for an end to the shutdown.
As the shutdown dragged on, Democratic and Republican lawmakers continued to blame each other for the impasse and flight disruptions.
White House on Friday was accused Democrats called the cancellations and delays “inflicting their man-made disasters on Americans who are simply trying to make life-saving medical trips or return home for Thanksgiving.”
On Saturday, Senate minority leader Democrat Chuck Schumer accused Republicans are “playing games” and in question “Instead of negotiating with Democrats, Republicans are choosing to unpay air traffic controllers, punish ground flights, and penalize passengers.”
Uncertainty remained for passengers about which flights would be canceled, and analysts warned that the disruption would likely intensify and spread beyond air travel if cancellations continued to rise and reach Thanksgiving week.
Kristen Welker, moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press, asked Democratic U.S. House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries if the shutdown would end before Thanksgiving. “I hope so,” Jeffries said.
Asked the same question by Welker, Oklahoma Senator James Lankford said, “It absolutely needs to be opened; it should be open today if we can open it.”
Rental car companies reported a sharp increase in one-way bookings on Friday, with some people canceling flights altogether.
Some analysts have noted the potential for higher prices in stores because nearly half of U.S. air freight is carried in the bellies of passenger planes. There is also the possibility of higher transportation costs being passed on to consumers and further losses to the economy, from tourism to manufacturing, if the slowdown continues.
