Just one day after the government reopened, U.S. airlines are inching closer to normal operations.
In a joint statement, Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy and Federal Aviation Administration head Bryan Bedford announced Friday that airlines can increase the number of flights they operate from 40 U.S. airports beginning Saturday morning.
Instead of making 6 percent reductions to their schedules, carriers will have to reduce the number of flights they operate by only 3 percent at airports including major hubs such as Dallas Fort Worth International, Washington Dulles International, Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International and Chicago’s O’Hare International.
Just one day after the government reopened, U.S. airlines are inching closer to normal operations.
In a joint statement, Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy and Federal Aviation Administration head Bryan Bedford announced Friday that airlines can increase the number of flights they operate from 40 U.S. airports beginning Saturday morning.
Instead of making 6 percent reductions to their schedules, carriers will have to reduce the number of flights they operate by only 3 percent at airports including major hubs such as Dallas Fort Worth International, Washington Dulles International, Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International and Chicago’s O’Hare International.
New data on air traffic controller staffing levels prompted the reduction, Duffy and Bedford said. The 3 percent reduction will remain in place while the agency monitors the system’s performance over the weekend.
The number of delays and cancellations have also dropped sharply since last weekend. On Friday, roughly 635 flights within, into and out of the U.S. were canceled, compared to more than 1,000 on Thursday, according to FlightAware, an online flight tracking service. Flight delays also dropped from more than 4,200 on Thursday to just over 2,400 on Friday.
Staffing has been a major concern throughout the shutdown. The controller workforce already was stretched thin, with employees at many facilities working 10-hour shifts and six-day weeks. Many continued to report for duty even though they weren’t getting paid, but growing numbers of facilities were reporting staffing shortages.
The number of staffing triggers, put into place when a facility does not have enough personnel, peaked at 81 on Saturday but has slowly decreased. On Tuesday there were 11 staffing triggers, and on Friday there were three.
Meanwhile, many controllers on Friday also began receiving a portion of their back pay.
The cuts began last week, when the Trump administration cited safety concerns and ordered airlines to reduce the number of flights they operated from 40 airports by 10 percent. The cuts were to be gradual, beginning with 4 percent on Nov. 7. On Wednesday, however, just hours before the House voted to reopen the government, Duffy and Bedford announced they were freezing the reductions at 6 percent.
The loosening of flight restrictions should help carriers as they prepare for an onslaught of travelers ahead of the Thanksgiving holidays.
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