Airlines optimistic about quick recovery as US shutdown ends

Airlines are optimistic they can resume normal operations just a few days after the United States government lifts its order to cut some flights at 40 busy airports, but it’s not clear how soon that will happen even though the federal shutdown is over.

The US Federal Aviation Administration, FAA, did announce Wednesday night that airlines won’t have to cut more than six per cent of flights at those airports because air traffic controller staffing has improved significantly in the last few days. Originally the order that took effect Friday, November 7, called for those flight cuts to increase to eight per cent on Thursday, November 13, and top out at 10 per cent on Friday.

A number of air traffic controllers missed work while they were going without pay during the shutdown, and the spike in understaffing at airport towers and regional control centres prompted the flight cut order due to concerns about safety. The existing shortage of several thousand controllers is so bad that even a small number of absences in some locations caused problems.

Officials at FAA and the US Transportation Department didn’t offer any updates Thursday morning about when they will decide to lift the order. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has said the decision will be based on the safety data that experts at the FAA are watching closely.

The airlines say they will be ready and expect that normal operations will resume within three or four days after the order is lifted. Some experts have suggested that problems might linger longer than that and could affect Thanksgiving travel, so it is difficult to predict whether the airlines will be able to recover from this as quickly as they do after a major snowstorm disrupts their operations and leaves planes and crews out of position.

Airlines focused cuts on smaller regional routes to minimise the impact on main hubs. By late Thursday afternoon, only a little over 1,000 flights had been cancelled across the country. Aviation analytics firm Cirium said nearly 95 per cent of all flights nationwide Thursday were on time.

“We are eager to resume normal operations over the next few days once the FAA gives clearance. We look forward to welcoming 31 million passengers – a new record – to our flights during the upcoming Thanksgiving travel period, beginning next Friday,” the Airlines for America trade group said on Thursday.

Duffy has said that controllers and other FAA employees should receive 70 per cent of their backpay within 24 to 48 hours of the end of the shutdown with the rest to come over the next couple pay cheques. The financial pressure on controllers drove some of them to seek side-jobs to help make ends meet while they dealt with the stress during the shutdown of the US government, which lasted 43 days.

There was talk of offering both air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration officers $10,000 bonuses for working during the shutdown. Duffy has suggested the bonuses might go only to controllers who never missed a shift during the shutdown, but Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said at a news conference on Thursday she planned to give the bonuses to any officers who went “above and beyond” while working without pay.

American Airlines CEO Robert Isom and Chief Operating Officer David Seymour told employees in a letter Thursday that they are already seeing improvements as controller staffing stabilized over the last day or so even though more flight cuts will be needed until FAA lifts the order. But travellers should already be seeing fewer delays and cancellations on the day of their flights.

The two executives said they believe American Airlines’ planning and efforts to minimise disruptions will help the carrier bounce back fast.

AP