Thanks to the government shutdown, Delta Air Lines has lost its special business class security screening checkpoints at both New York JFK and at LAX.
Exclusive screening lanes for Delta One customers at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport aren’t currently active, Delta Air Lines confirmed. These lanes normally allow passengers who buy pricey Delta One airfare for international flights from those airports to bypass the standard security checkpoints.
This isn’t ‘the government cutting some services deemed non-essential’. TSA screening isn’t a service that’s paused without approved government funding. Instead, TSA isn’t able to maintain all services at full capacity when employees don’t all come to work.
- Most government employees aren’t being paid during the shutdown. It’s expected that they’ll receive full back pay once the shutdown ends.
- That’s true for both essential and non-essential workers (though in the latter case, the Trump Administration has made some nods towards not paying). Everyone who is working with pay deferred can expect to be paid in full, and likely all government workers even who aren’t working will be paid.
- But employees like TSA screeners and air traffic controllers are unhappy getting $0 pay in the meantime. And they can’t be expected to be in a position to finance the wait (“living paycheck to paycheck”). Many are taking other jobs in the meantime, such as driving for Uber or delivering DoorDash.
I can sympathize! This will ultimately become a ‘double dip’. And it wreaks havoc on travel. Air traffic control centers have experienced understaffing in several cases that have caused systemwide delays, although not yet at the level of 2019.
On the morning of January 25, 2019, air traffic controllers at New York TRACON (N90) and Washington Center (ZDC) called in sick in large numbers, leading to ground stops and delays across the Northeast. That ended the 35-day federal government shutdown, with a short-term funding bill passing that afternoon and getting signed by the President.
In the meantime, as the shutdown continues, we’ll see employees working without pay showing up in lower numbers. And fewer staff mean the ones who are left legitimately will feel fatigued, and they’ll call out sick as well.
For now, neither American nor United report a pause in special security queues for their premium passengers.
So if I understand this correctly, airlines are probably paying TSA for their own dedicated security lines, but since this would presumably go into the general fund, there’s no additional incentive for TSA workers to continue working these lines during the shutdown. This mean that when TSA is short staffed, they’ll cut the airline specific lines before they cut the general line even if they lose more revenue.
Correct me if I’m wrong.
It’s #47’s fault and the lame-Republicans! Boo!
No, they’re saying ‘boo-urns’…
Good let the rich wait like everyone else!!!!!!!!!!!!
I just literally used the Delta One security line this morning from LAX. Sooooo….
I’m really sickened by the “other party” for using this to push their own agenda… even they used to say “we can’t be shutting down the government because of this-that” – and yet now they are doing JUST that.
I’m waiting for 47 to do an EO for the Continuing Resolutions / Funding bills to get everyone paid.
privatize the entire thing
@haolenate — Congress funds the government, not the Executive; then again, his 6-3 Supreme Court will probably let ‘your guy’ do whatever he wants, so… also, the Senate could just go ‘nuclear’ and do 50 votes instead of 60, but, keep in mind, future admins parties will then do the same for their own priorities. And, if they reopen, House will have to seat AZ Rep, then we get Epstein files, so… maybe it’s your ‘side’ delaying after all. Hmm.
I doubt this made much of a practical difference. At T4 there are so many other security lines – general, pre-check, pre-check face id (or whatever they call it), clear, regular priority…
Right now at prime time wait times for T4 are 21 minutes general, 3 minutes pre-check.
So maybe this is a minor staffing issue, or maybe this is perhaps more of a subtle message that is targeted at the “rich coastal delta one” folks to have them exert more pressure on their local Democrat senators (and in the case of NY, their local Democrat senate minority leader) to get the government to open up again. Could be slightly more effective than whatever that recording they produced for the TSA checkpoints was.
I think the loss of SNAP benefits on 11/1 is much more of an issue than this, of course.
shu-mer shu-tdown
@Peter — 3 minutes?! How dare they!
@Don G — Schumer has redeemed himself (slightly) for giving-in too easily before; you’re welcome to try, but most Americans realize who’s in-charge, now, and it ain’t Chuck. (How’r the Baileys doing these days anyways? IYKYK.)
Congress did not see this coming? They are not doing their jobs, as usual.
Oh no! The wealthy will feel the pain of the shutdown! How awful is that?
This is entirely the fault of Republicans breaking the government. Expect it to get worse.
Time for DL to pony up some cash for the thieves in charge of Merica.
Here’s hoping America gets EVERYTHING we voted for. Maybe then we’ll learn.
People don’t seem to care that 11 million people are losing health insurance, that 80 million will lose supplemental nutritional support or that 1.4 million federal employees and their families no longer have a source of income. What we are about is that rich people have to stand in line with everyone else.
Oh, the horror! Losing privilege can be such an inconvenience.
@Parker. Of course, I care about those affected by shutdowns. We should have a system where only members of Congress have their paychecks stopped during an impasse. The good news is this can go away as soon as some stop trying to extend a temporary Covid ACA scheme that subsidizes people making more than 400% of poverty-level income. About a third of the enrollees are in that category.
BTW, 400% of poverty-level income is $60,240 for one person. So, part of the reason for a shut down is the insistance of some to continue to subsidize those making more than $60,000.
Oh no! What will the entitled do without their entitlements! Suffer, thee, unto the hordes of unwashed rabble! The thought!!
Meanwhile, the GOP is going to starve children and their working-poor parents and elders on Saturday. But that’s OK, as long as ACA ends and we can all become slaves to giant corporations.
All of this could have been solved, had bobble-headed cuckold leader Johnson freed himself from the ballgag and corner chair in Donny’s Epstein Memorial oligarchy dungeon.
@Parker — I’m with you (and @dukeofgibbon above), 100%. The complicit and comfortably wealthy haven’t had a ‘taste’ of the ‘suffering,’ yet; it’s literally gotta affect them or their wallets, personally, before they even start care. Then, there’s his base, who want others to suffer so badly that they’ll give up literally everything they have to see him do so (they crazy, dawg.)
@This comes to mind — Nice red-herring you got there.
@Samus Aran — Hit ’em where it hurts; ATC at Teterboro should call-in sick. I hear there’s a cold going around, anyways… *cough*
@Richard A Swanson — Speaking of #47…”not see,” you say?