Flight delays continued at U.S. airports Sunday amid air site visitors controller shortages as the federal government shutdown entered its second month, with Newark airport in New Jersey experiencing delays of two to 3 hours.
New York Metropolis’s Emergency Administration workplace mentioned on X that Newark delays typically ripple out to the area’s different airports.
Vacationers flying to, from or by means of New York “ought to anticipate schedule adjustments, gate holds, and missed connections. Anybody flying at present ought to test flight standing earlier than heading to the airport and anticipate longer waits,” the social media put up added.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been warning that vacationers will begin to see extra flight disruptions the longer controllers go and not using a paycheck.
“We work additional time to verify the system is secure. And we’ll sluggish site visitors down, you’ll see delays, we’ll have flights canceled to verify the system is secure,” Duffy mentioned Sunday on CBS’S “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
He additionally mentioned he doesn’t plan to fireplace air site visitors controllers who do not present up for work.
“Once more once they’re making selections to feed their households, I’m not going to fireplace air site visitors controllers,” Duffy mentioned. “They want help, they want cash, they want a paycheck. They don’t must be fired.”
Earlier in October, Duffy had warned air site visitors controllers who had known as in sick as a substitute of working and not using a paycheck through the shutdown risked being fired. Even a small variety of controllers not exhibiting up for work is inflicting issues as a result of the FAA has a crucial scarcity of them.
The Federal Aviation Administration mentioned Friday on X that almost 13,000 air site visitors controllers have been working with out pay for weeks.
Staffing shortages can happen each in regional management facilities that handle a number of airports and in particular person airport towers, however they don’t all the time result in flight disruptions. In accordance with aviation analytics agency Cirium, flight knowledge confirmed robust on-time efficiency at most main U.S. airports for the month of October regardless of remoted staffing issues all through the month.
Earlier than the shutdown, the FAA was already coping with a long-standing scarcity of about 3,000 air site visitors controllers.
