MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Flights across the U.S. are being delayed again today because of a shortage of air traffic controllers. Federal regulators say staffing shortages were to blame for ground delays last night at busy airports serving New York, Los Angeles and Denver, and that is just one of the ways the ongoing government shutdown may affect commercial aviation. NPR transportation correspondent Joel Rose has been watching this. He's here now. Hey, Joel.
JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: Hey, Mary Louise.
KELLY: Start with those delays last night. What actually happened?
ROSE: Well, the Federal Aviation Administration says a staffing shortage caused delays at three airports - Denver, Newark, New Jersey, and Burbank, California.
KELLY: OK.
ROSE: Maybe the worst problems were at that Hollywood Burbank airport. There were zero air traffic controllers on duty for several hours.
KELLY: Zero?
ROSE: Zero - controllers at another FAA facility in southern California actually had to take over communicating with the pilots. That led to average delays of more than two hours at that airport. Overall the FAA says a dozen facilities had staffing shortages yesterday, and at last check, eight facilities have shortages today, including towers at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago and in Nashville. We are already seeing ground delays at both of those airports, and there are staffing shortages at facilities that handle traffic around big hubs also in Newark and Houston, so potentially could see an even bigger mess today.
KELLY: Although you have been here telling us about staffing shortages in the not-so-recent past, is this all because of the shutdown?
ROSE: There already was a nationwide shortage of air traffic controllers, to be sure, which has nothing to do with the government shutdown.
KELLY: OK.
ROSE: Staffing is several thousand controllers short of where the FAA and the controllers union say it should be. Nearly 11,000 certified controllers do have to work during the shutdown, but they do not get paid until it ends. During the last shut down back in 2018 and 2019, we saw controllers calling in sick in higher than normal numbers, especially once that shutdown dragged on past a month, and that caused some serious delays at major airports on the East Coast and may have even played a key role in bringing that shutdown to an end. There has been a small uptick in the number of controllers calling in sick this year, according to federal officials, but as we've seen, it doesn't take huge numbers to have a big impact.
KELLY: Joel, I have to catch flight this week. I'm sure I'm not alone in people listening to you and thinking, hold on, should I even be doing this? Is it safe to fly right now?
ROSE: The FAA and the Department of Transportation say yes, emphatically, their top priority is keeping the system safe. But if they have to, they will limit the number of takeoffs and essentially reduce the number of planes in the air, and that leads to delay. Here is transportation secretary Sean Duffy at a press conference yesterday in Newark.
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SEAN DUFFY: Is our airspace unsafe? No. If we think there's issues in the airspace, we will shut it down. We will close it down. We will delay.
ROSE: That is what we saw yesterday and are already seeing again today.
KELLY: One more thing, Joel, we've been talking about big airports that serve big cities for the most part. What about the possible impact of the shutdown on rural airports? - 'cause there's stuff happening there, too.
ROSE: Yes, there is a federal program that subsidizes flights to rural airports. It's called the Essential Air Service Program. There are about 170 smaller communities around the country that likely would not have commercial air service without it, including more than 60 in Alaska alone. The Trump administration says that program will run out of money as soon as this weekend if the shutdown continues. But that said, it is not clear exactly how much of an immediate impact we would see. At least one major carrier, Alaska Airlines, says it will continue flights for now, even without that subsidy. And it is likely that the smaller regional airlines that operate most of these flights would do the same at least for a while. I also want to note the White House proposed cutting more than $300 million from that program earlier this year, even though it has broad bipartisan support in Congress.
KELLY: Thank you, Joel.
ROSE: You're welcome.
KELLY: NPR's Joel Rose.
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