Welcome to The Logoff: The FAA has ordered flight cancellations at airports around the country, starting today — and while the impacts aren’t too dramatic yet, the cuts will get more stringent soon.
What happened? Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says that, because of the government shutdown’s strain on air traffic controllers — who have been going without pay — he will start restricting flights at airports.
On Thursday, he released an order doing just that. At 40 highly trafficked airports, carriers must reduce 4 percent of their operations today – increasing to 10 percent by next Friday.
Is this political? Many interpreted Duffy’s action as an attempt to make more people feel the pain of the shutdown, so as to pressure Democrats into agreeing to end it.
It is, however, true that air traffic controllers haven’t been paid for five weeks — many are financially stressed, which doesn’t seem ideal for aviation safety.
Have airports been thrown into chaos? The overall level of 4 percent cancellations on Friday is not yet so unusual. Southwest Airlines called it “a level we routinely manage during standard weather or irregular operational events,” per the Wall Street Journal.
Still, the restrictions will get more painful as they ramp up to 10 percent next week.
Will the shutdown ever end? Speculation that this could be the week for a deal to reopen the federal government didn’t pan out — in part because Democrats, encouraged by their strong performance in Tuesday’s elections, now believe they are winning the politics of the shutdown and should hold out for more concessions.
President Donald Trump has been digging in, too. He’s urged Senate Republicans to abolish the filibuster and reopen the government with their party’s votes alone — but, so far, they’ve refused. So the longest shutdown in history is getting longer.
