\n<\/p>\n
Staffing shortages at US airports are anticipated to cause further disruption to air travelers on Wednesday as effects from the US government shutdown, now in its seventh day, ripple out across the country.<\/p>\n
Union leaders for air traffic controllers and airport security screeners have warned the situation is likely to get worse, as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported staffing issues at airports in Nashville, Boston, Dallas, Chicago and Philadelphia, as well at its air traffic control centers in Atlanta, Houston and the Dallas-Fort Worth area.<\/p>\n
The airline regulator has slowed takeoffs at several airports this week as air traffic control facilities struggle to maintain staffing amid the federal government shutdown.<\/p>\n
Travel industry analyst Henry Harteveldt told the Associated Press that the risk of wider impacts to the US aviation system \u201cis growing by the day\u201d and that the longer the shutdown goes on, the more likely it is to affect holiday travel plans in November.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m gravely concerned that if the government remains shut down then, that it could disrupt, and possibly ruin, millions of Americans\u2019 Thanksgiving holidays,\u201d Harteveldt said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Union leaders within the American Federation of Government Employees met Wednesday to urge lawmakers in Congress to reach a bipartisan deal to reopen the federal government and discuss its impact on the transportation sector.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe count on federal workers everyday to do our jobs. Hundreds of thousands of aviation workers, federal and private sector, ask all day long, \u2018Is it safe?\u2019 We do that so the American public can take safety and security for granted,\u201d said Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA).<\/p>\n
TSA officers and air traffic controllers are coming to work \u201cunderstaffed and under-resourced by the government in any increasingly unsafe scenario,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cIn safety we know that the first rule is to remove all distractions. But what could be more of a distraction than not getting a paycheck?\u201d<\/p>\n
Staffing shortages, including an elevated number of workers calling in sick at airports across the US, on Monday affected major airports around New York, Los Angeles and Denver on Monday, delaying over 6,000 flights across the US.<\/p>\n
In Los Angeles, air traffic control at Burbank airport was closed and air traffic was handled by another facility. The Nashville airport was experiencing delays of around two hours because of staffing issues, the FAA said on its website on Tuesday. At Chicago\u2019s O\u2019Hare airport delays averaged 41 minutes, and at Dallas-Fort Worth delays were logged at 30 minutes, the FAA said.<\/p>\n
About 92% of the more than 23,600 flights departing from US airports as of Tuesday afternoon took off on time, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. Despite the delays, the FAA had not issued a \u201cstaffing trigger\u201d that would reduce the number of flights in and out of airports, NBC News said.<\/p>\n
In a statement on its website, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), the largest union representing air traffic controllers, said it did \u201cnot endorse, support, or condone any federal employees participating in or endorsing a coordinated activity that negatively affects the capacity\u201d of the National Airspace System.<\/p>\n
The union said \u201cair traffic controllers and other aviation safety professionals take their responsibility to protect the safety of the flying public very seriously. Participating in a job action could result in removal from federal service. It is not only illegal, but it also undermines NATCA\u2019s credibility and severely weakens our ability to effectively advocate for you and your families.\u201d<\/p>\n
The transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, warned Tuesday that the country\u2019s air traffic control system is being harmed by the government shutdown.<\/p>\n
During a visit to Newark Liberty airport in New Jersey, Duffy said the shutdown has increased stress on controllers, who are already working with outdated equipment, and he blamed Democrats for the situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not just now thinking about the airspace,\u201d Duffy said of air traffic controllers, who are not paid during a shutdown. \u201cThey\u2019re thinking about, \u2018Am I going to get a paycheck?\u201d<\/p>\n
That comes as Donald Trump has signaled that some furloughed federal workers may not, as is customary, receive back pay when the government reopens.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are some people that don\u2019t deserve to be taken care of, and we\u2019ll take care of them in a different way,\u201d Trump said during an event at the White House. He added that said back pay \u201cdepends on who we\u2019re talking about\u201d.<\/p>\n
According to the FAA\u2019s shutdown contingency planning, a quarter of the workforce, or more than 11,000 FAA employees, were furloughed when the shutdown began last week. But 13,000 air traffic controllers continue working, with hiring and training also ongoing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not wealthy, they don\u2019t have three or four or five months of cash sitting in their bank accounts,\u201d Duffy said. \u201cLike many of us, they go from one paycheck to the next, and they rely on that to pay the bills.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nick Daniels, president of the NATCA, said the shutdown highlighted issues that air traffic controllers were already facing, including staff shortages and outdated equipment. The situation, he said, was particularly grave at smaller airports.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not like we have other controllers that can suddenly come to that facility and staff them. There\u2019s not enough people there,\u201d Daniels told AP.<\/p>\n
The Associated Press contributed to this report<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Staffing shortages at US airports are anticipated to cause further disruption to air travelers on Wednesday as effects from the US government shutdown, now in its seventh day, ripple out across the country. Union leaders for air traffic controllers and airport security screeners have warned the situation is likely to get worse, as the Federal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[3480,543,1845,319,558,9155,11209,9313],"class_list":{"0":"post-26786","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-airport","9":"tag-delays","10":"tag-expected","11":"tag-federal","12":"tag-government","13":"tag-shortages","14":"tag-shutdown","15":"tag-staffing"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}