Travel disruptions continued to mount at airports across the U.S. on Friday as the government shutdown persists, heightening pressure on air traffic controllers who have endured a month without pay. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has warned that flight delays will escalate as controllers remain unpaid.
“Every day, there’s going to be more challenges,” Duffy noted in a statement to reporters outside the White House following a meeting with Vice President JD Vance and aviation industry leaders focused on the shutdown’s effects on travel.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) indicated on Friday that staffing shortages were leading to delays at major airports including Boston, Phoenix, San Francisco, Nashville, Houston, Dallas, and the Washington, D.C. area. The New York City airports—John F. Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia, and Newark Liberty—were also affected, with delays averaging about two hours.
The FAA reported that nearly 50 percent of major air traffic control facilities are grappling with staffing shortages, with approximately 90 percent of controllers out at New York-area facilities. While staffing shortages can arise in regional control centers as well as individual airport towers, not all shortages trigger flight disruptions. Despite the issues, aviation analytics firm Cirium reported that most major U.S. airports demonstrated strong on-time performance throughout October, although signs of broader delays emerged on Thursday, the first noticeable slowdown since the shutdown commenced on October 1.
Cirium’s data showed that many U.S. airports experienced below-average on-time performance on Thursday, with fewer flights departing on time. Orlando’s airport reported delays averaging nearly four and a half hours due to staffing issues. The data fails to specify the exact causes of delays, which could stem from either staffing shortages or external factors such as weather.
Last weekend, the FAA had to issue a brief ground stop at Los Angeles International Airport, temporarily holding flights at their origin for roughly two hours due to controller shortages. During the ongoing shutdown, most air traffic controllers have been mandated to work overtime six days a week, leaving them little opportunity for second jobs to manage living expenses. Duffy highlighted the struggle many controllers face to commute to work without sufficient funds for gas, having missed their first full paychecks last Tuesday.
Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), stressed that missing even one paycheck poses significant hardships for air traffic controllers, as it does for many American workers. “Asking them to go without a full month’s pay or more is simply not sustainable,” he said in a statement on Friday.
In response to the crisis, some U.S. airports have stepped up to assist federal aviation employees, including controllers and Transportation Security Administration agents, by providing food donations and other forms of support. Prior to the shutdown, the FAA was already contending with a long-standing shortfall of about 3,000 air traffic controllers, emphasizing the systemic challenges faced by the aviation industry during these tough times.