by Owen Liu
On October 1st, Congress failed to reach an agreement regarding funding legislation resulting in federal employees not being immediately paid. Within this branch of federal employees are Air Traffic Controllers (or ATCs for short). This cancellation of pay led to many workers calling in sick or taking second jobs, leading to a diminished workforce. As a result, the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) made a decision to restrict the airspace, effectively cancelling flights to maintain safety.
According to FlightAware, on November 9th, over 3,000 flights were cancelled in the US. Although it is unclear how much of these cancellations and delays were caused by inclement weather, Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) as well as Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees have all been working for 42 days without pay as of November 11th.
On top of this, these employees have been forced to take up side gigs or call in sick to provide for their families. Consequently, according to USAtoday, the FAA is down one to two thousand controllers, leading to staffing issues at 12 towers.
In total, more than 3.5 million travelers have been faced with flight delays and cancellations due to a failure to accommodate all of these flights. And this number is only going to keep rising.
On November 6, the FAA announced “A 4 percent reduction in operations will take effect Friday, November 7, ramping up to 6 percent by November 11, 8 percent by November 13, and 10 percent by November 14.”
In an interview, Sophomore Paul Van Haetsdaele mentioned how he is visiting family in France over Christmas, and noted that if his flight were to get cancelled, then “that wouldn’t be fun.”
The compensation for having your flight canceled is a refund or a rescheduling for your flight. However, that doesn’t encompass the inconvenience that a cancellation would cause.
Overall, the government being shutdown led to the FAA cancelling thousands of flights across the nation due to safety reasons. These cancellations have led to inconveniences for both passengers and federal employees, as many have been forced to search for alternatives to their issues.
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