As Congress moves closer to ending the record-breaking government shutdown that’s disrupted thousands of flights nationwide, a swift return to normal operations at U.S. airports remains unlikely.
The Senate approved a bipartisan deal to end the shutdown on Monday night, sending the measure to the House, which is expected to take it up later this week. If passed, the legislation would reopen the government and restore pay for hundreds of thousands of federal employees who have been working without pay since Oct. 1.
At a press conference in Chicago on Tuesday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said flight operations were beginning to stabilize after a difficult weekend marked by widespread staffing shortages and flight disruptions.
“Saturday, Sunday, Monday were very rough travel days, significant cancellations and significant delays,” Duffy said. “However, today has been a much better day. A lot more air traffic controllers are coming in. On Saturday, we had 81 staffing triggers. Today, we have four. So I think our air traffic controllers are seeing an end to the shutdown and feel more hopeful, and they’re coming into their facilities. We’re grateful to them for all that they’re doing.”
While Duffy described a noticeable improvement in staffing and flight operations, aviation officials and union leaders cautioned that a full recovery will take time and that the system’s deeper problems remain unresolved.
Earlier in the day, when asked by reporters in Wausau, Wisconsin, whether air travel would be back to normal by Thanksgiving if the government reopens, Duffy said much of that will hinge on staffing levels.
“Depends on, are we going to have air traffic controllers come into work,” he said. “If we have the controllers showing up, I think we’re going to be back to regular flight schedules again. I can’t control the weather. I can’t control if there are mechanical issues on aircraft. But with regard to controlling the airspace, we’ll be up and running.”
Duffy added that controllers could begin receiving back pay within 48 hours of the government reopening, which would ease some financial strain. “I believe that in this package to reopen the government, our controllers could be paid within 48 hours,” he said. “It’s a 70 percent payment, but they’ll get a big lump sum of what they’re due, which is helpful. They don’t have to wait another two weeks to be paid.”
After peaking on Sunday with nearly 3,000 flight cancellations and more than 10,000 delays, air travel showed signs of improvement on Tuesday. Data from Cirium indicated that about 1,148 flights, just over 5% of the day’s total, were canceled as of Tuesday afternoon, with LaGuardia and Boston suffering the highest effects at 12% and 8% respectively.
The FAA began ordering phased flight reductions last week, cutting schedules by up to 10% at 40 of the nation’s busiest airports in an effort to reduce stress on an already depleted workforce. Even once funding resumes, the Federal Aviation Administration’s staffing crisis will continue to constrain flight operations. Duffy has stated that he does not plan to rescind the FAA’s flight reductions until controllers return to work and safety data improves.
Airlines for America, which represents the nation’s largest carriers, said flight schedules cannot immediately bounce back once the shutdown ends. “There will be residual effects for days,” the group said in a statement on Monday, warning that delays could spill into the Thanksgiving travel rush.
Both industry groups and air traffic controllers agree that returning to full operations won’t happen overnight. “The shutdown isn’t a light switch,” Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said Monday. “It’s not just on and it’s not just off.”
President Donald Trump weighed in on Truth Social Monday, urging air traffic controllers to return to work and warning of penalties for those who stay home. He criticized employees taking time off during the shutdown, saying those who continued reporting for duty should be rewarded with bonuses.
A veteran controller in the Midwest told the Washington Examiner that morale has cratered as mandatory overtime stretches into its second month. “The system wasn’t healthy before the shutdown, and it’s not going to be healthy after it,” he said. “We’ve been short-staffed for years, and hiring takes time we don’t have.”
He described a relentless schedule in which most controllers rotate through late evenings, early mornings, and overnight shifts, often returning to work with just a few hours of rest. “It’s not sustainable,” he said. “We’ve been operating this way for a decade, and now it’s worse.”
Duffy said on CNN’s State of the Union that the FAA is short thousands of air traffic controllers, with retirements accelerating during the shutdown. “I used to have about four controllers retire a day before the shutdown,” he said. “Now up to 15 to 20 a day are retiring.”
The wave of retirements underscores a deeper workforce crisis, as some controllers, exhausted by years of long hours and mounting pressure, are quitting outright.
A controller in Minnesota who resigned last week said the shutdown was the final straw after months of high stress and limited support. “Seeing people with 15 or 18 years on the job say they regret working six-day weeks their whole lives made me think, is this really what I want to do?” he said. “This job has always been stressful, but now it’s just unnecessary.”
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS WARN FLIGHT CUTS WON’T EASE SHUTDOWN STRAIN OR PREVENT RISK
The FAA’s staffing challenges predate the shutdown. The agency remains about 3,000 certified controllers below full strength, a shortfall that has persisted for more than a decade as retirements outpace hiring and a significant share of trainees do not complete certification. Overall, about 20% of trainees fail to certify as a controller at their first assigned facility, according to FAA data.
Even as the Trump administration pushes a multibillion-dollar modernization plan to overhaul outdated radar and communication systems, experts say no technology upgrade can offset the human gap. As one controller put it, “You can’t automate focus or rest. Until we fix that, nothing’s really going to change.”