By Barbara OrtutayThe Related Press
Flight delays continued at U.S. airports Nov. 2 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 modifications, gate holds, and missed connections. Anybody flying right now ought to examine flight standing earlier than heading to the airport and anticipate longer waits,” the social media put up added.
George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Dallas Fort Value Worldwide Airport and Chicago O’Hare had been additionally seeing dozens of delays and one or two cancellations, together with main airports in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver and Miami, in line with FlightAware.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been warning that vacationers will begin to see extra flight disruptions the longer controllers go with out a paycheck.
“We work additional time to verify the system is protected. And we are going to gradual site visitors down, you’ll see delays, we’ll have flights canceled to verify the system is protected,” 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 don’t 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 assist, 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 referred to as in sick as an alternative of working with out a paycheck throughout the shutdown risked being fired. Even a small variety of controllers not displaying up for work is inflicting issues as a result of the FAA has a crucial scarcity of them.
The Federal Aviation Administration mentioned Oct. 31 on X that just about 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 at all times result in flight disruptions. In accordance with aviation analytics agency Cirium, flight information confirmed sturdy 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.
