A “substantial” number of Americans will likely miss Thanksgiving with their families because of air-travel snarls thanks to the government shutdown, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned Sunday.
A “substantial” number of Americans will likely miss Thanksgiving with their families because of air-travel snarls thanks to the government shutdown, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned Sunday.
“Yesterday, 18 to 22 controllers in Atlanta didn’t show up. We had 81 staffing [shortage] ‘triggers’ throughout the national airspace yesterday,” Duffy told CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“It’s only going to get worse. I look to the two weeks before Thanksgiving, you’re going to see air travel be reduced to a trickle,” he said.
Air-traffic controllers have been forced to work without pay since Oct. 1 because of the ongoing government shutdown, which reached its historic 40th day Sunday.
As a result, many of the controllers have had to pick up alternative gigs such as with Uber and DoorDash to make ends meet.
