Chicago O’Hare International Airport had the most cancellations, with nearly 25% of its scheduled flights scrapped. Over 16% of services in and out of Boston Logan Airport were scrubbed, as were 15% of trips at New York City’s LaGuardia Airport.
The growing fallout stems from the Federal Aviation Administration’s directive to reduce flight capacity by 10% at the roughly 40 busiest US airports, a bid to alleviate what US aviation officials have said are signs of strain in the nation’s airspace system. The reductions began on Friday.Delta Air Lines Inc. cancelled about 490 flights on Monday out of nearly 5,000 scheduled trips, according to Cirium. The carrier said that the “vast majority” of affected passengers were rebooked on the same day for a new flight.
Compounding the difficulties, the National Weather Service issued an advisory for Chicago and its suburbs Monday morning because of lake effect snow. The impact of snow on one of the nation’s busiest aviation hubs was compounded by delays caused by ATC staffing shortages.
The cancellations kept some cockpit crews from getting where they were supposed to be for work. That’s prompting airlines to begin tapping their ranks of reserve pilots, said Dennis Tajer, an American Airlines Group Inc. captain and spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association union.
“I’m currently flying an overtime trip, as out of Chicago, there was a tsunami of misconnections due to the government shutdown and Mother Nature’s snow visit,” he said.
The early use of reserve pilots may create a shortage when backup is most needed around Thanksgiving, he said. On-call pilots are limited in the number of hours they can fly.
In the meantime, the impasse in Washington surpassed 40 days, though the Senate took a key step forward Sunday to reopen the government when some moderate Democrats sided with Republicans.
House Speaker Mike Johnson urged lawmakers to return to Washington in anticipation of a likely midweek vote to end the shutdown, warning they could face flight delays caused by the ongoing funding lapse.
Johnson called the state of air travel a “very serious situation”.
“We have to do this as quickly as possible,” he said Monday.
Without a deal, the stress on the air traffic system will intensify ahead of the busy Thanksgiving season — potentially bringing travel to a virtual standstill — if controllers don’t get paid, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Sunday.
Controllers just missed their second straight full pay cheque, and the resulting financial instability adds a layer of strain to what’s already a stressful job, Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said Monday.
“The fatigue has led to the erosion of safety and the increased risk every day that this shutdown drags on,” he said.
The median annual salary for controllers last year was $144,580, according to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics. Trainees typically make less than that.
While the union was holding its press conference, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that controllers who’ve missed work during the shutdown should return immediately or face the prospect of having future pay “docked”.
Trump also said he’d recommend $10,000 bonuses for those who keep working.
The FAA restrictions aren’t just affecting commercial flights. About a dozen hub airports — including Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta — are limiting access for private jets and other general aviation aircraft.
The government-mandated flight reductions are set to increase on Tuesday morning, with airlines required to cancel 6% of their services, compared with 4% since last Friday. That total could reach 10% by this coming Friday.
Once an agreement is reached in Washington and the shutdown ends, airlines should be able to restore curtailed capacity in about 12-36 hours, said Bob Mann, a former American Airlines executive who is currently head of consultant R.W. Mann & Co.
The cuts don’t directly impact international flights, but travellers on connecting flights through the US are still affected. Foreign carriers’ planes are forced to join the lines of domestic aircraft waiting on tarmacs to take off because of staffing shortages.
The disruptions will boost costs for airlines, given certain unavoidable expenses such as pilot wages, Bloomberg Intelligence analysts George Ferguson and Melissa Balzano wrote in a note.
At the same time, the shutdown also could improve the companies’ fourth-quarter margins as carriers drop unprofitable and smaller routes, they said.
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