Flight Delays Could Force Parties To The Shutdown Bargaining Table

The shutdown stalemate is showing signs of provoking one of the most powerful forces in the federal bureaucracy: an army of overworked, currently unpaid air traffic controllers.

A string of staffing shortages in airport control towers this week caused hourslong delays for travelers from California to Tennessee, demonstrating the outsize influence of a more than 13,000-person-strong workforce whose pay stopped when the government shut down.

The delays don’t represent an organized work stoppage — as the controllers’ union adamantly made clear. But aviation gridlock has played a role in hastening the end of at least one past federal shutdown, by forcing lawmakers to decide whether their partisan cage match is worth droves of complaints from angry constituents and businesses.

And it’s now getting the attention of the controllers’ boss, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who gave them a warning Wednesday in an appearance on Fox News: “My message to the air traffic controllers who work for DOT is show up for work. You have a job to do.”

Congress and the executive branch have been in a similar position before: The 35-day shutdown that marked President Donald Trump’s first term finally ended after some controllers along the East Coast called out sick, forcing cascading delays. The resulting turmoil was widely credited for helping reopen the government hours later.

But if lawmakers are ready to call the whole thing off this time, it wasn’t apparent on Wednesday, with some members of both parties answering questions about flight delays with the parties’ typical talking points.

“I’m hoping [this is] one of the things that will make Donald Trump ... decide that this strategy of ‘don’t deal with the Democrats and don’t negotiate’ is foolish,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) whose party is insisting that the president and the GOP come to the table over expiring health care subsidies.

Republicans, in turn, have tried to invoke the controller staffing issues to pressure Democrats to fold.

Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) blamed Democrats for the strain controllers are under, saying in a post on X that Republicans are “simply asking more Senate Dems to do the right thing—join us to reopen the government.”

Asked if the latest flight disruptions could spur Congress to break their deadlock, former Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said it could, but suggested that it may need to become more painful first.

“It did last time, but it took a long time,” said DeFazio, who chaired the House Transportation Committee when the last prolonged shutdown happened. And it only occurred after “massive delays.”

During his Wednesday appearance on Fox News, Duffy said that historically about 5 percent of flight delays across the country are attributable to controller staffing, but that “in the last couple of days it’s been 53 percent.”

Neither DOT nor the Federal Aviation Administration responded to questions about the staffing shortages. An automatic email reply from the FAA said the agency is not answering routine media inquiries due to the lapse in funding. The FAA curtails flights at airports, including during staffing shortages, in order to ensure safety, which in turn drives delays.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association union has said it’s not unusual for “a few” controllers to take sick time on any given day. In an email, the union added that it had warned its members that “any coordinated activity to slow down the [national airspace system] is illegal and could have severe consequences for them.”

“NATCA is [leaving] the politics to the politicians. Our members are focused on showing up every day to do their job,” the union said.

The labor group also noted that the shutdown is drawing attention to the strains the workforce is under. Controllers were already enduring long hours before the shutdown — they sometimes work up to 60 per week — and must contend with chronically short staffing and aging technology in an environment with no tolerance for failures.

That’s been compounded this year by the stress from January’s fatal jetliner-helicopter crash in Washington, which killed 67 people in the nation’s deadliest aviation accident in over two decades.

As of about 4 p.m. Eastern time Wednesday, the FAA was reporting one looming spate of delays due to staffing challenges, at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee’s aviation panel, said she doesn’t think flight disruptions will force a deal this time. She said the standoff is “about health care” and called on Republicans to negotiate with Democrats.

But Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) said the onus is on Democrats “to finally realize they shouldn’t be holding the American people hostage for their political ambitions.”

On social media, the partisan wars continue to rage. X has been filled with dueling messaging from GOP and Democratic lawmakers. Duffy and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California got into a social media spat earlier this week after staffing-forced delays cropped up at Hollywood Burbank Airport near Los Angeles.

Beyond that, the stakes for the country’s aviation system are high. A 2023 independent expert review dinged Congress for “funding instability” when it comes to the FAA, saying this has “resulted in the disruption of critical activities, notably including the hiring and training” of controllers.

“I don’t know what’s gonna be the final straw that breaks our [camel’s] back, but I hope it’s soon,” said Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.). Any disruptions, he said, if nothing else should accelerate the two sides’ “ability to come together.”

“It could get worse,” he said.