US airlines cancel 1,460 flights as travel woes increase
The Federal Aviation Administration on Saturday reported major air traffic control staffing problems affecting 37 airport towers and other hubs, with flights delayed in at least 12 major U.S. cities including Atlanta, Newark, San Francisco, Chicago and New York.
Nearly 6,000 flights were delayed on Saturday; 7,000 flights were delayed and 1,025 canceled on Friday.
The FAA had ordered airlines to reduce daily flights by 4% at 40 major airports starting Friday due to air traffic control safety concerns. The record 39-day shutdown led to shortages of air traffic controllers, who, like other federal employees, have not been paid for weeks.
The reduction in flights is expected to increase to 6 percent on Tuesday and then reach 10 percent by November 14.
Shortages in air traffic led the FAA to impose ground delay schedules at nine airports on Saturday; There was an average delay of 282 minutes for flights in Atlanta, one of the busiest airports in the USA. The outages, which began at 6 a.m. ET (1100 GMT) on Friday, involve approximately 700 flights across the four largest carriers: American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines. Four airlines canceled about the same number of flights on Saturday under the authority of the FAA, but were forced to cancel additional flights due to air traffic control personnel issues.
Earlier this week, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said 20% to 40% of controllers had not reported to work in the past few days.
During a U.S. Senate debate on Friday, Sen. Ted Cruz blamed the closure on air traffic control concerns. Cruz, the Texas Republican who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, said he was told pilots have filed more than 500 voluntary safety reports about errors made by air traffic controllers due to fatigue since the shutdown began.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Saturday that bipartisan talks to end the shutdown were taking a positive turn but the business day ended with no deal announced. The Senate will try again in a rare Sunday session.
During the government shutdown, 13,000 air traffic controllers and 50,000 security supervisors were forced to work without pay, resulting in increased absenteeism. Many air traffic controllers were notified Thursday that they will not receive compensation for a second consecutive pay period next week. US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said it would be possible to cut air traffic by 20% if more controllers did not show up for work. “I’m evaluating the data,” Duffy said. “We will make decisions based on what we see in the airfield.” The Trump administration said Republicans’ efforts to pressure Senate Democrats to support what they called a “clean” government funding bill with no strings attached pointed to air traffic control issues. Democrats attribute the shutdown to Republicans’ refusal to negotiate on health insurance subsidies, which expire at the end of this year.
