The FAA ordered flight cuts across 40 major markets if the government shutdown doesn’t end by Friday. We’ll start to see 4% cuts Friday, 5% Saturday, growing to 10%.
- This is a function both of real staffing shortages, which the FAA has failed to address for 20 years and which are exacerbated by air traffic controllers calling out while pay for their hours work is deferred during the shutdown
- And also political pressure – the last shutdown ended when the air travel pain was felt broadly, as controllers shut down travel in the Northeast (where politicians and journalists are)
There’s both a safety issue, and a political one. Limiting flights at airports that don’t have staffing issues on a given day doesn’t provide relief at other airports that do, since the FAA has resisted remote towers for years, just as they haven’t addressed the pipeline of controllers (or succeeded in upgrading technology). Broad reductions do provide relief for enroute centers, however.
Here are the airports:
| Anchorage (ANC) | Atlanta (ATL) | Boston (BOS) | ||
| Baltimore (BWI) | Charlotte (CLT) | Cincinnati (CVG) | ||
| Dallas Love ( DAL) | Washington National (DCA) | Denver (DEN) | ||
| Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) | Detroit (DTW) | Newark (EWR) | ||
| Fort Lauderdale (FLL) | Honolulu (HNL) | Houston Hobby (HOU) | ||
| Washington Dulles (IAD) | Houston Bush (IAH) | Indianapolis (IND) | ||
| New York JFK (JFK) | Las Vegas (LAS) | Los Angeles (LAX) | ||
| New York LaGuardia (LGA) | Orlando (MCO) | Chicago Midway (MDW) | ||
| Memphis (MEM) | Miami (MIA) | Minneapolis (MSP) | ||
| Oakland (OAK) | Ontario (ONT) | Chicago O’Hare (ORD) | ||
| Portland (PDX) | Philadelphia (PHL) | Phoenix (PHX) | ||
| San Diego (SAN) | Louisville (SDF) | Seattle (SEA) | ||
| San Francisco (SFO) | Salt Lake City (SLC) | Teterboro (TEB) | ||
| Tampa (TPA) |
Airlines have flexibility in what flights they’ll cut. They’re not being forced to cut international:
- Those planes tend to be larger, affecting more passengers – the requirement is to cut flights, not passengers.
- And East Coast – Europe, West Coast – Asia, Northern U.S. – Canada and Southern U.S. – Mexico and Central/South America use comparatively little U.S. air traffic control resources. (Travel across the North Atlantic is handled by NavCanada.)
Understanding these principles, that the goal is to limit use of air traffic control resources by limiting number of flights, and limiting the numer of affected passengers per flight, airlines will be disproportionately cutting regional jet flights.
I’m actually sitting in a Courtyard Marriott in a city of about 115,000 – smaller than Abilene, Texas and Columbia, South Carolina. I’m on a work trip, booked on a regional jet to a large hub on Friday to connect home. I’m within driving distance of another airline’s hub. So I’m buying a new ticket home from that hub.
My advice when you really need to travel, especially since airlines dropped change fees on most tickets (including award tickets, but excluding basic economy), has been:
- Buy a second itinerary on another airline for travel later in the day than your original booking.
- If you make it out on your planned flight, cancel the second booking.
- If your first one is cancelled or heavily delayed, take a refund.
If you’re a frequent traveler, and you’re buying the backup ticket on an airline you do travel on (this is important – you will generally need to use your flight credit within a year), this is an almost costless strategy to you and it buys you options. It’s especially helpful because during peak travel times your original airline may not have extra seats to get you where you’re going. Or bad weather in their hubs or other operational issues may cluster, hindering their ability to get you out. Having a backup on another carrier gives you a much better shot of getting you where you’re going.
And using miles is even better, because no change fees makes the tickets effectively fully refundable. You just cancel and get the miles and even taxes back!
Close-in bookings with cash are another wrinkle. Airlines don’t have to apply the normal 24 hour free cancellation policy to tickets purchased inside of a week of travel, but some (like Delta, United) do. I’m booking within 24 hours of planned travel.
Some of you have told me you think this is a selfish strategy, because it holds inventory I’m not going to use. I’m not sure it’s unfair to other passengers, because a passenger will get moved into the seat (standby) that I give up. There’s a better case to make that it’s unfair to the airlines, who can’t sell the seats as easily at a high fare. But here’s the CEO of an airline telling you that you should do this.
Frontier Airlines CEO Barry Biffle wants you to book a high fare ticket on his airline as a backup for the ticket you have on another carrier. Of course he does! If you wind up cancelling, you’ve got a credit you have to use later on his airline, or forfeit. Either way it’s money he wouldn’t have gotten!
Ultimately, our politics are broken and our air traffic control system is broken. And here we have those two colliding!
The first immediate step these airports should do is suspend all private jet travel aside from emergency (I.e. medevac) or military movements. Then the balance of the load should spread to commercial and cargo carriers.
FAA gets to decide the rate of traffic flow but the local airports get to decide what type of traffic.
When the Federal Aviation Administration mandates a 10% reduction in flights due to the air traffic controllers’ illness and absence during the government shutdown, will this result in a passenger benefit of 10% fewer gate lice at our departure gates?
So because the Frontier CEO is a prize jerk we’re supposed to screw over other people out of selfishness? Showing a bit more than usual of yourself Gary and it’s not all that pretty.
Any word on whether this affects non-US airlines flying to and from the United States (as opposed to international flights of US carriers)?
@ Gary — I double-booked us on a back-up for our massive hub-to-massive hub transcon last night for a day early, which we will use only if the other flight is cancelled in advance (as they supposedly will be). I hope that there isn’t a cancellation day of, or we are screwed. I love that all the people booking back-up flights will just make the situation even worse.
Well, at least Canada is doing their part by not visiting the U.S. (Make America Grounded Again!) So our Dear Leader can find money to pay his ICE thugs to kidnap landscapers, construction workers and folks hanging around taco trucks, but won’t pay Air Traffic Controllers, SNAP (until the court order), continue subsidies so people’s ACA health insurance doesn’t quadruple in price, and then pays $40 Billion to bail out Argentina, of all places. Can’t that $40 Billion help AMERICA FIRST instead? And tariff taxes are causing all of us to pay more.
@Andy – you do know (likely not) the end of the ACA subsidies was due to a bill passed by the Democratic Congress and signed into law by Biden right? It specifically stated the additional subsidies were temporary with a 12/31/25 expiration date. It is fine IMHO to discuss how to extend them or ramp them down in a more structured way but to shut the government over it is all in the Dems. Sorry but it is.
Another good option if you have an upcoming travel is to try to book the first flight out in the morning. Assuming they’re not an RJ, they’re dependent on the flight arriving the night before, so that should give a little more notice if something happens.
Additionally, if you are on a higher-volume route, there are more options to get rerouted. I have DFW-IAH-GRU coming up, and I just changed to the first flight out. I’m kind of doubly backed up as if something goes south, the likelihood a 787 gets canceld (as Gary notes) is less likely and I have enough time, worst case scenario, for one way rental from DFW to IAH to get the connetition.
@Retired Gambler — No. Republicans caused both this shutdown (by not negotiating in good faith with Democrats on a bi-partisan budget), and also, the Republicans chose not to continue the ACA subsidies when they passed The One Big Beautiful Bill during budget reconciliation (no support from Democrats).
Also, it’s undeniable that Republicans control all three branches of the federal government. Your Dear Leader has literally said many times before that it’s the President’s fault when there’s a shutdown. Are you calling your guy a hypocrite? Uh oh. He won’t like to hear of your disloyalty….
It’s a wonderful life!