A airplane takes off from Hollywood Burbank Airport as operations resume a day after the airport operated for hours with no staffed control tower resulting from staffing shortages amid the U.S. authorities shutdown in Burbank, California, U.S., October 7, 2025.
Daniel Cole | Reuters
Air traffic control staffing points are delaying flights for a second straight day at quite a few U.S. airports as the federal government shutdown reaches its seventh day, the Federal Aviation Administration mentioned in a discover on Tuesday.
The FAA mentioned many flights had been being delayed at Nashville and Newark airports, amongst others. Arriving flights had been being held for as much as half-hour at Newark because of the staffing points.
Nashville air traffic control is going through vital staffing points and can curtail operations afterward Tuesday, the FAA mentioned. Approach control might be taken over later by Memphis Center, it added.
The FAA is decreasing the variety of arriving flights per hour at Chicago O’Hare, citing staffing, with common delays of 41 minutes.
The FAA additionally reported staffing points at Atlanta Air Route Traffic Control Center.
Severe climate can also be impacting flights throughout the nation.
Some 13,000 air traffic controllers and about 50,000 Transportation Security Administration officers should nonetheless flip up for work throughout the federal government shutdown, however they don’t seem to be being paid. Controllers are set to obtain a partial paycheck on October 14 for work carried out earlier than the shutdown.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy mentioned on Monday the FAA had seen a slight enhance in controllers taking sick go away and air traffic staffing has been lower by 50% in some areas because the shutdown began final week.
“If we don’t have controllers, we’re going to make sure the airspace is safe. So what we do is we’ll slow traffic,” Duffy mentioned on Tuesday on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends.”
FlightAware, a flight monitoring web site, mentioned greater than 2,500 flights had been delayed on Tuesday, together with about 200 at Nashville, or 20% of its flights, and practically 500 flights at Chicago O’Hare, or greater than 15% of flights.
In 2019, throughout a 35-day shutdown, the variety of absences by controllers and TSA officers rose as employees missed paychecks, extending checkpoint wait instances at some airports. Authorities had been pressured to sluggish air traffic in New York, which put strain on lawmakers to rapidly finish the standoff.