New reason to worry

Congress just created a new reason to worry about air travel

Yet another concern for air safety: the understaffed employees who will work without pay.

By Sam Ogozalek

The government shutdown adds yet another source of stress for the nation’s already overburdened aviation system — including the more than 10,000 air traffic controllers who are already enduring long hours, chronically short staffing and the trauma of January’s mass-fatality crash in Washington.

Controllers remain at work despite the lapse in funding that began early Wednesday — much like the airport baggage screeners, military service members and other federal employees whose jobs are classified as essential. So air travel will continue as normal.

But they’ll be working without pay until Congress reaches a deal to reopen the coffers. And that means controllers who sometimes spend up to 60 hours a week managing the safety of the American skies will also face new worries about how to pay the bills.

“During the last government shutdown, when it was for 35 days, your air traffic controllers were out driving Uber on the side so that way they can make sure they can pay for the insulin for their sick sister,” said Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association union, during a Sept. 10 event in Chicago. “They were out, going out and trying to find any kind of job in their off-hours to just bring in some type of revenue.”

Years of strain on the nation’s aviation system, and the rush to course-correct after the January crash, have prompted a Trump administration push to “supercharge” controller hiring and address aging technology at the Federal Aviation Administration. A three-day hearing into the causes of the midair collision in Washington earlier this year revealed a caustic mix of forces eroding aviation safety, including equipment issues, increasingly busy skies — and overworked controllers.

At a POLITICO event Tuesday, hours before the funding lapsed, Deputy Transportation Secretary Steven Bradbury called the controllers “great Americans” who will remain “highly professional” regardless of the drama on Capitol Hill.

“I wouldn’t suggest there’s reason to fear for the traveling public,” Bradbury said.

But the shutdown is poised to only worsen longstanding issues for controllers, and it could prompt some of them to take action. A brief, unofficial sickout at one large air traffic control facility was widely credited with helping end the last prolonged shutdown, which lasted 35 days in 2018 and 2019 during President Donald Trump’s first term.

After a morning that January during which several controllers at the facility near Washington called out sick, flight delays along the East Coast began to stack up and quickly cascaded to Atlanta and beyond.

“Do we have your attention now, Leader [Mitch] McConnell? All lawmakers?” said Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, at the time. “Open the government and then get back to the business of democracy to discuss whatever issue you so choose. This shutdown must end immediately.”

By that evening, Trump and other leaders called the shutdown off.

The U.S. Travel Association, a business trade group, has warned that a shutdown will cause a $1 billion hit each week to various industries, including airlines, hotels and more.

The newest lapse in appropriations comes after multiple warnings that Congress’ dysfunction has worsened the problems plaguing the U.S. aviation system. A 2023 independent expert review ordered by the FAA said a string of stopgap funding and government shutdowns has “resulted in the disruption of critical activities,” including by causing flight delays and hampering modernization efforts.

“This situation makes it extremely difficult for the FAA to effectively conduct long-term business planning and execution,” the report added.

Classes at the FAA Academy, the entry-level training venue for air traffic controllers, will continue. Field training and hiring for controllers also won’t be interrupted, which is a change compared with a Transportation Department contingency plan from March. Secretary Sean Duffy has prioritized boosting the ranks of controllers following the Jan. 29 crash between a PSA Airlines regional jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter above the Potomac River, which killed 67 people in the nation’s deadliest aviation disaster in more than two decades.

According to the latest shutdown contingency plan for DOT, roughly 12,000 department employees will be furloughed, the vast majority of which are at the FAA. But no controllers will be furloughed.

In the wake of the previous 35-day shutdown, the then-chair of the House Transportation Committee suggested he was considering a bill that would allow the FAA to continue operating as normal during a lapse in funding. But Congress did not enact legislation to that effect.