WASHINGTON — Flight disruptions are likely to continue even after the government reopens, airlines and aviation regulators warned, as airlines cancelled scores of flights on Tuesday.
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered airlines to reduce air traffic at 40 of the nation's busiest airports, with cuts still ramping up to 10% of flights by Friday. The agency has been dealing with persistent staffing shortages of air traffic controllers, who are required to work without pay during the shutdown, which is now the longest in U.S. history at 42 days and counting.
This past weekend, the FAA reported staffing shortages at dozens of facilities, prompting the agency to slow air traffic to relieve pressure on air traffic controllers who did show up to work. On Tuesday, airlines canceled more than 1,200 flights, according to the aviation tracking site FlightAware.
The situation seemed to be improving somewhat on Tuesday, according to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, with only a handful of FAA facilities reporting staffing shortages. But Duffy said that air traffic restrictions would remain in place until regulators are satisfied that staffing is back to normal levels.
"We're going to wait to see the data on our end before we take out the restrictions in travel," Duffy said during a press conference at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. "But it depends on controllers coming back to work."
Even when those restrictions are lifted, it may take several days for airlines to return to normal operations.
"It's gonna take a bit to unwind," said former FAA administrator Randy Babbitt in an interview with NPR's All Things Considered.
"The airplanes are in the wrong cities and so forth. They're going to have to sort all that out as well. So a good deal of the responsibility will be the carriers getting their schedules and the aircraft and personnel back in the right positions to resume normal flying," Babbitt said.
An aviation industry trade group, Airlines for America, also warned that it will take time for carriers to get back to normal.
"Airlines' reduced flight schedules cannot immediately bounce back to full capacity right after the government reopens. It will take time, and there will be residual effects for days," the group said in a statement.
The FAA argues the flight restrictions are necessary to keep the system safe while fewer air traffic controllers are showing up to work during the government shutdown. Some of those controllers have taken on second jobs during the shutdown, and many have called in sick.
But to the Trump administration's critics, the move appears to be about more than just safety. Some Democrats argue that the cuts were a political ploy to raise the pressure to end the government shutdown.
Secretary Duffy rejected that charge on Tuesday, saying the administration was responding to real concerns from pilots and mounting concerns about increasing loss of separation between aircraft.
And he warned of even bigger disruptions ahead if lawmakers do not vote to end the shutdown.
"You may find airlines that stop flying, full stop," Duffy said in Chicago. "You might have airlines that say, we're going to ground our planes, we're not going to fly anymore. That's how serious this is."
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