Agency Says it Will Close Parts of the National Airspace to Mitigate Risks

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned on November 4 that, if the government shutdown continues into this next week, “mass chaos” will hit US air travel… and the DOT will be forced to make changes. His remarks were the strongest warning yet from the administration as thousands of unpaid controllers continue working under mounting strain.

“You will see mass chaos, you will see mass flight delays, you will see mass cancellations, and you may see us close certain parts of the airspace because we just cannot manage it because we don’t have the air traffic controllers,” Duffy said during a news conference.

The situation has been deteriorating for weeks. Air traffic controllers are deemed “essential” employees and therefore must report to work despite not being paid. Many, according to union officials, have taken on side jobs or missed shifts as financial pressures build up.

This stacks with the pre-existing ATC shortage. 3,000 controller positions are vacant, leaving those on duty working long hours to make up for it. Especially now that more and more controllers are calling in sick to avoid working for free, towers across the nation are in over their heads.

Last week, 35 FAA facilities reported serious staffing shortfalls. In the New York area, some centers reported 80 percent of controllers absent. While the FAA can shift workloads between facilities to manage temporary shortages, flexibility has its limits… and the upcoming travel season may bring it to its breaking point.

Still, Duffy assured that flying is “safe, and if it wasn’t, we would shut it down… But with this shutdown, it would be dishonest to say that more risk is not injected into the system.”

This doesn’t just impact current controllers. Instructors at the ATC academy, which trains new controllers, are also not receiving pay. Funds to uphold financial incentives for new trainees have been scraped together from leftover fiscal years, but are now running on empty.

FMI: www.transporation.gov