On Friday, the United States recorded more than 1,000 cancelled flights, a number that continues to grow, due to the constant downtime in the control towers due to staff shortages due to the persistence of the longest government shutdown in the history of the country, while the Senate discusses a possible alternative to end the crisis.
According to the tracking site Flightaware, some 1,006 flights have been canceled so far, with Washington, Chicago, Atlanta, Denver and New York airports being the most affected at the moment.
“We have to take unprecedented action because we are in an unprecedented situation with the government shutdown,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told CBS News.
Duffy called for an end to the federal shutdown, now in its 38th day, the longest in U.S. history, with no clear signs of an agreement in the Senate.
The country’s largest airlines such as American Airlines, United and Delta are the ones reporting the most cancellations, mainly on domestic routes, accumulating more than 400 cancelled flights among the three.
According to the company Cirium, which provides aviation data and analytics for the industry and was quoted by The New York Times, the disruptions are relatively minor at the moment.
But if current figures hold, this would be the 72nd worst day for cancellations since the beginning of last year in the country.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reports staffing problems at O’Hare and Ontario (California) airports and Newark (New Jersey), which serves New York and has consistently suffered from a shortage of controllers in recent weeks to the point of having to temporarily halt all weekend operations.
The shutdown has already left a shortage of 2,000 air traffic controllers who, according to authorities, have left and taken temporary jobs due to lack of pay.
Millions of U.S. travelers could be affected if this situation is prolonged in the run-up to Thanksgiving, one of the most important holidays of the year in the country.
“We saw controllers working six days a week, ten-hour days,” said Duffy, who insisted that this pressure on these professionals leaves figures that “while not alarming, were worrying,” so he defended the reduction as a way of anticipating problems.
Democrats are conditioning the extension of Obamacare health care subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of the year, on their support for the measure to end the shutdown.
The Republican majority (53) needs votes from the opposition caucus (45) for the bill to pass with the necessary 60 votes.
Filed under: Flights canceled due to government shutdown
With information from EFE
