FAA Cuts Ground 815 Flights as Shutdown Forces Controllers To Work Without Pay

American air travelers are scrambling to reach their destinations as the Federal Aviation Administration’s historic order to slash flights nationwide takes effect — a direct casualty of the record-breaking government shutdown.The FAA’s order hit 40 airports across more than two dozen states — including major hubs like Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, and Charlotte. Cities with multiple airports like New York, Houston, and Washington, D.C., are also impacted, with ripple effects reaching smaller airports as well.The cancellations have mounted quickly, with more than 815 flights grounded nationwide, according to FlightAware. Delta axed roughly 170 Friday flights and American Airlines will cut 220 a day through Monday, according to a report from The Associated Press. Airlines urged passengers to check their apps as the weekend cancellations began to pile up.The reductions start at 4 percent and increase to 10 percent by November 14. All commercial airlines will be affected between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. daily.The cutbacks aim to relieve air traffic controllers working without pay for more than a month, many pulling six-day weeks with mandatory overtime. Sick calls are rising as the financial strain and exhaustion pile up.“You can’t expect people to go in to work when they’re not getting a paycheck,” frequent business traveler Kelly Matthews of Flat Rock, Michigan, said to the AP.“I mean it’s not a matter of them not wanting to do the job — but you can’t afford to pay for gas, your day care and everything else.”The Trump administration is pressing Democrats to end the shutdown. Airlines pledged to limit the damage to travelers, focusing cancellations on routes serving small and mid-size cities.The air traffic control industry has long depended on federal subsidies to keep operations running. After seeing the effects that government shutdowns, both past and present, have had on air travel in America, some have proposed privatizing the system.“We shouldn’t subsidize transportation modes,” a Cato Institute fellow and former senior economist on the congressional Joint Economic Committee, Chris Edwards, recently said to The New York Sun. “It earns revenue by itself.”“It’s entirely feasible,” he said regarding making the air traffic control system a privatized non-profit corporation. “There are dozens of other countries that have gone halfway to that.”“They’ve basically made their air traffic control arm’s-length separate from the government budget, and the key is just that, you know, the fees from airlines go directly to the entity, so it’s out of the government budget.”

FAA Cuts Ground 815 Flights as Shutdown Forces Controllers To Work Without Pay

More from the New York Sun

Trump Calls for Jack Smith To ‘Be Brought to Justice’ as Outrage Grows at Surveillance of President’s Aides and GOP Senators

Republicans Back Trump’s Iran Strikes, Multiple Polls Show, Undercutting MAGA ‘Civil War’ Fears

Spain Denies Any Involvement With America’s Strikes on Iran, Saying Commitment to ‘No War’ Is Absolute

More from the New York Sun

Trump Calls for Jack Smith To ‘Be Brought to Justice’ as Outrage Grows at Surveillance of President’s Aides and GOP Senators

Republicans Back Trump’s Iran Strikes, Multiple Polls Show, Undercutting MAGA ‘Civil War’ Fears

Spain Denies Any Involvement With America’s Strikes on Iran, Saying Commitment to ‘No War’ Is Absolute

Trump Says He Will Make Endorsement in Texas Senate Race ‘Soon,’ Demands Other GOP Candidate Quit the Race

Democrats’ Break With Israel Deepens as Newsom Likens Israel to an ‘Apartheid State,’ Questions Military Support

Massachusetts Warns RFK Jr. To Keep His Hands Off of Dunkin’ With Health Push

‘His Nails Left Scratch Marks on My Legs’: Harvey Weinstein To Go on Trial April 14 for Third Time on Same Rape Charge After Plea Talks Collapse

American Submarine Notches First Torpedo-Aided Kill Since World War II Against Iranian Warship in International Waters