The impact of the federal government shutdown on the air traffic control system in the United States could linger on well beyond the reopening of the government.
From safety redundancies and modernization efforts to training future controllers and keeping the best staff, much of the work of the Federal Aviation Administration could see long term harms from the shutdown, experts say.
“There’s no question that the shutdown will only set us backwards,” said Erik Hansen, senior vice president and head of government relations for the US Travel Association. “The real risk is that it will do irreparable harm to our efforts to hire more air traffic controllers and to modernize air traffic control.”
When the current staff of 14,000 air traffic controllers looked at their bank accounts on payday this week, there was nothing deposited.
Controllers are required to show up for their job during the government shutdown but are not being paid. A zero-dollar paystub was processed for every controller on Tuesday, the first in the nearly 30-day shutdown period, with no clear end in sight.
“I’ve been clear to air traffic controllers; they need to show up for work,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a news conference Tuesday. “They do really important work for our country, and they need to show up. But I’m not going to lie to anybody to not say that they’re not feeling the stress.”
US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy speaks during a news conference at LaGuardia Airport in New York City on Tuesday. – Seth Wenig/AP
Some controllers are left with no choice but to accumulate debt or make difficult financial decisions to stay afloat.
“We make the impossible look possible every single day, but now with the shutdown, we’re making the impossible impossible for people to continue to live without money,” Nick Daniels, the president of the National Association of Air Traffic Controllers said this month. “Instead of focusing on the safety of the American flying public, they’re now focusing on what they can’t afford to pay.”
Every day of the shutdown is ‘less safe’
Transportation officials and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association have warned of the risks to the controller workforce if the shutdown persists. Many cite the struggles the financial strain can take on controller focus, which can hinder aviation safety.
“Air traffic controllers are showing up to work, but we’re being put in a position that every day that this is less safe,” Daniels, said Tuesday. “I’m going to work right now, and I’m thinking about, how do I pay my rent? Rent is due in a few days, how to put food on the table, how to put gas in my car just to show up to work. And those are levels of safety that are being reduced in the system, and the flying public doesn’t deserve that.”
‘They should never get off a night shift and then go wait tables’
Since the start of the shutdown, the Department of Transportation and Duffy have said controllers were considering taking second jobs to make ends meet in the event of no pay. Duffy previously cited controllers talking about driving for rideshare companies like Uber or delivering food on DoorDash to pay bills.
It’s something that Daniels, whose union represents nearly 20,000 controllers and other aviation workers, said should never happen.
Air Traffic Controller Lisa Blake distributes a leaflet to travelers explaining how the federal government shutdown is impacting air travel at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in Romulus, Mich on Tuesday. – Paul Sancya/AP
“(Controllers) should never work a side job,” Daniels said. “They should never get off a night shift and then go wait tables and then go move the commerce and people through this airspace.”
That “pressure is real,” controller Joe Segretto, who handles flights approaching and departing New York, said Tuesday at a news conference at LaGuardia airport.
“Somebody came to me and said… ‘I need your advice. What am I to do? Do I put gas in my car? Do I put food on the table We don’t have money for daycare. What do I do?’ I didn’t have the answers,” Segretto said.
“Almost every controller… can’t make it without two paychecks,” Duffy said, noting the situation will only get worse.
Short circuiting supercharged hiring and new technology
The air traffic control system has been short thousands of controllers for years.
At the beginning of the year, Duffy announced plans to “supercharge” hiring at the FAA, which came with pay bumps and a streamlined hiring processes.
Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, speaks during a press conference at LaGuardia Airport in New York City on Tuesday. – Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
In September, before the shutdown, the DOT said it met its hiring goals for the year by recruiting more than 2,000 people to combat the shortage. The FAA’s air traffic controller academy in Oklahoma City was the “busiest” it has ever been, an FAA official told CNN in July, with roughly 800 to 1,000 more trainees in the pipeline than a year ago.
But now, some long-sought after trainees are leaving to pursue careers with more financial stability.
“If you’re an air traffic controller today and you’ve gone through the financial hardship of a shutdown, you’re going to be looking for potentially new career paths or other opportunities,” Hansen said.
The funding to pay trainees is also beginning to run out, according to Duffy. Future controllers get stipends to make ends meet as they go through schooling. If that stops, it “will be cataclysmic for them,” he said. “That money is about to run out, and we’re seeing several of our students drop out of the Academy.”
The DOT also incentivized controllers approaching the mandatory retirement age of 56 to stay on the job earlier this year. A lump sum payment of 20% of the basic pay of a retirement eligible controller was promised for each year they continue to work.
“We’re going to have a tougher hill to climb to get back to staffing levels that can not only keep the country safe, but keep air travel growing,” Hansen said. “We’re going to have a tougher hill to climb to modernize the system.”
In May, the DOT announced it would replace decades old infrastructure by building an entirely new air traffic control system for $31.5 billion, but the shutdown could hurt that effort as well.
Earlier this year, the DOT secured a $12.5 billion “down payment” in Congressional funding to take steps like replacing the decades-old copper wiring with fiberoptic lines.
While that money is still available for the modernization efforts, the DOT has trouble spending some of it due to the shutdown.
“I don’t have the staff in place, because they’ve been furloughed, to actually execute the agreements or do the oversight that’s necessary by federal law for these projects,” Duffy said last week.
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