Shutdown Will Disrupt Air Travel, Transportation Chief Warns

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy delivered a stern message at the Capitol on Thursday: The federal government shutdown is already putting a strain on air traffic controllers, and the problem will only get worse until the government reopens.

“Next Tuesday is the first paycheck that [air traffic controllers] will not receive for the work that they did in October,” Duffy said at a House Republican leadership news conference.

Democrats in the Senate have repeatedly voted against a short-term funding extension to reopen the government, demanding that Republicans yield to their demands on health care policy and repealing conservative legislation.

“You have a controller that’s working six days a week, but has to think about, ‘How am I going to pay the mortgage? How am I going to make the car payment? How am I going to put food on my kids’ table?’ They have to make choices, and the choices they’re making is to take a second job,” Duffy said.

Duffy warned of disruptions in air travel due to the shutdown as the busy holiday travel season approaches.

“I can’t guarantee you that your flight is going to be on time. I can’t guarantee you that your flight’s not going to be canceled. It’s going to depend on our air traffic controllers coming in to work every single day,” he said.

The news conference took place shortly before a Senate vote on a bill from Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., to appropriate funds to pay essential federal workers. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also has a bill to pay air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration employees.

But Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., said he sees little chance of Senate Democrats budging and supporting those bills.

“We are told that the Democrats have vowed to vote ‘no’ on that measure,” Johnson said when asked whether he would bring the House back into session if the Senate voted to restore pay to federal workers. “They will vote against restoring paychecks to troops, Border Patrol agents, air traffic controllers, TSA agents, and all the rest.”

Johnson rejected the idea of bringing the House back into session to take the lead on passing bills to pay federal workers. He said he thinks it would be doomed to fail, and if passed, would only ease pressure on Democrats to keep the government shut down.

“They’re going to show you this afternoon that they would spike that bill, so it would be a waste of our time, and it would take the pressure off [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer to get his job done and open the government again,” Johnson said of the New York Democrat.

The shutdown appears likely to drag on as a staring contest between Democrats and Republicans to see who blinks first and yields to pressure.