We just came out of what could have been the The most chaotic weekend at US airports in yearsand flight cancellations are piling up throughout the country.
And although now there seems to be momentum in Washington On the path to reopening the government, the Trump administration is making ominous predictions about what air travel could soon look like if the shutdown drags on.
“I think we’ll see a significant disruption next weekend. Maybe as early as Friday,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at a news conference Tuesday at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport (ORD).
Duffy also stated that some airlines could consider grounding their planes if the disruptions worsened, although several airline industry sources told TPG late Tuesday that they were not aware of any such plans.
Closure’s impact on air travel grows
However, the impact of the shutdown on air travel has certainly increased substantially in recent days. Travelers suffered massive disruption last weekend when understaffed air traffic control facilities produced traffic jams that lasted for hours and helped lead to more than 20,000 cancellations and delays on Saturday and Sunday.
Read more: Flight delayed or canceled? This is what you should do
Air traffic controllers have been working without pay since the shutdown began, and a growing number of controllers have been out of work over the past 10 days or so.
To ease the burden, the Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday began requiring airlines to cancel 6% of flights in 40 major airports nationwide, up from 4% over the weekend. Those cuts are expected to reach 8% of flights on Thursday and extend to 10% on Friday.
That would mean thousands of daily cancellations.
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What will happen when the government reopens?
It’s unclear how quickly the FAA would lift those restrictions once the government reopens.
“We’re going to wait to see the data on our end before we lift travel restrictions,” Duffy said Tuesday, citing safety data that he said showed an increase in concerning safety incidents on the runways and in the air in recent weeks.
Signs of (slight) progress
There were some (slightly) positive signs on Tuesday.
While airlines canceled more than 1,200 flights, according to FlightAware, that was far fewer than the numbers for Saturday, Sunday or Monday. More importantly, the number of canceled flights remained stable: airlines made the required cuts and things did not get substantially worse from there.
As poor as it may seem, it’s an improvement over the weekend.
Additionally, by late afternoon, the FAA had reported only four so-called “personnel activators” at its air traffic control facilities, Duffy said. On Saturday there were 81.
Thanksgiving trips coming up
However, it is still unclear how quickly air travel could get back up and running if, or when, the government reopens.
Once that happens, Duffy said, controllers would receive their paychecks within 48 hours. That could be a key step in getting more workers back into control towers and flights back up and running. However, there is still a lot of uncertainty after a difficult week at the airports and with the The Thanksgiving travel rush is now just two weeks away.
Speaking last week to TPG, a top air traffic control expert said ending the shutdown would likely help Thanksgiving travel, but stopped short of predicting a return to normal operations.
“There should be a little boomerang effect, but there will also be a trickle-down effect,” said Margaret Wallace, a professor at the Florida Institute of Technology’s College of Aeronautics.
What to know about air travel and the shutdown
In the meantime, TPG has complete coverage on the closure and what you can do if you have a trip planned:
