Every day of the federal government shutdown air traffic controllers calling out sick have caused flight delays, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Friday.
“It’s different every day,” he told reporters at a news conference at Philadelphia International Airport. “The average… is about 5% of our delays come from staffing shortages with air traffic controllers. We’ve gone up as high as 53% of the delays… because of staffing shortages.”
On Friday, 11 air traffic control facilities were short-staffed, including the control towers in Dallas Fort Worth, Newark and Phoenix, TRACONs which handle flights approaching and departing Houston, Newark, Southern California as well as centers, which handle high altitude flights around Albuquerque, Atlanta, Denver and New York.
It’s the overworked and lack of air traffic controllers that’s the most worrying and dangerous.