Holiday travel is usually a headache even in the best of times, but with the government shutdown showing no signs of ending, the White House is warning Thanksgiving and holiday-season travelers that things could be bumpier than usual.
Some 13,000 air traffic controllers and 50,000 TSA agents are currently impacted by the ongoing federal government shutdown
Dmitrii Marchenko
Holiday travel is usually a headache even in the best of times, but with the government shutdown showing no signs of ending, the White House is warning Thanksgiving and holiday-season travelers that things could be bumpier than usual.
While flight attendants and Transportation Security Administration officers are required to work without pay during a shutdown, officials are concerned that a growing number of those workers could begin to call out sick as a form of protest.
"I can't guarantee you that your flight will be on time. I can't guarantee you that your flight's not going to be canceled. It's going to depend on our air traffic controllers coming into work every single day," U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Thursday.
Some 13,000 air traffic controllers and 50,000 TSA agents are currently impacted by the stalemate. Controllers will miss their first full paycheck on Tuesday.
"We fear there will be significant flight delays, disruptions and cancellations in major airports across the country this holiday season," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. "If Democrats continue to shut down the government, they will also be shutting down American air travel."
Democrats continue to blame Republicans for the shutdown.
Shortages in air traffic control have been responsible for more than half of the flight delays since the shutdown began 24 days ago. Typically, that number is closer to 5%. On Thursday, more than 6,000 flights were delayed in the U.S. and 283 were cancelled, according to FlightAware.
Air traffic controllers were a big part of the reason the last government shutdown ended in 2019. On January 25 of that year, the 35th day of the shutdown, 10 air traffic controllers, six from northern Virginia and four from Florida, stayed home. That small work stoppage was enough to cause delays at several hubs and shut down travel temporarily at La Guardia airport in New York.
The shutdown ended later that day.
The work stoppage by that small group of controllers came on the day that marked the second full missed paycheck.
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