By David Shepardson
BALTIMORE (Reuters) -The Federal Aviation Administration delayed flights for a third straight day on Wednesday at airports including Reagan Washington National and Newark Liberty International Airport as the agency continued to face higher-than-normal staffing shortages.
There were nearly 3,000 flight delays by 5:30 p.m. ET (2130 GMT) after 10,000 delays in total on Monday and Tuesday with thousands tied to the FAA slowing flights because of air traffic controller absences at facilities across the country as the government shutdown reached its eighth day.
Some flights at Reagan were being forced to hold in the air due to a slowdown in air traffic, the FAA said.
“Historically, there’s about 5% of delays that is attributed to staffing issues in our towers. Last couple days it has been 53%,” U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said on Fox News’ “Will Cain Show.” “My message to the air traffic controllers who work for DOT is show up for work — you have a job to do.”
Air traffic control staffing issues during this shutdown have emerged earlier than the last major halt to government funding in 2019, during U.S. President Donald Trump’s first term, leading to unexpected shortages in cities around the country.
“The bottom line is these controllers are stressed out, and they’re rebelling on this shutdown because they may not get paid,” Duffy said.
Maryland Governor Wes Moore and congressional Democrats called for the shutdown to end at Baltimore-Washington International Airport on Wednesday, noting that air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration officers are working without pay. Moore, a Democrat, said President Trump “could not close a deal” to keep the government open.
Representative Kwiesi Mfume, a Democrat, called for supplemental legislation that would continue to pay air traffic controllers during a shutdown.
“People are beginning to worry now about flying and we should as a nation never get to that point,” he said.
In 2019, during a 35-day shutdown, the number of absences by controllers and TSA officers rose as workers missed paychecks, extending checkpoint wait times at some airports. Authorities were forced to slow air traffic in New York, which put pressure on lawmakers to quickly end the standoff.
Some 13,000 air traffic controllers and about 50,000 Transportation Security Administration officers must still turn up for work during the government shutdown, but they are not being paid. Controllers are set to receive a partial paycheck on October 14 for work performed before the shutdown.
“Our BWI workers are still here,” Moore said. “They’re doing it because they’re patriots. They’re doing it because they know that this work matters.”
Separately, Duffy said USDOT had secured $41 million to keep the Essential Air Service program funded into early November. Some carriers including Alaska Airlines had vowed to continue government-subsided flights to rural or remote areas even after USDOT warned they might not get reimbursed starting next week.
The U.S. has faced air traffic control shortages for more than a decade, and many controllers had been working mandatory overtime and six-day weeks even before the shutdown. The FAA is about 3,500 air traffic controllers short of targeted staffing levels.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Mark Porter and Diane Craft)
