Andrew Thomas/AP
The knock-on effects from the government shutdown, now the longest in US history, continue apace, with the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) cuts to air traffic at 40 of the nation’s busiest airports now officially in effect.
The mandate, which kicked off on Friday with an initial 4 percent reduction, has already cancelled more than 1,700 flights this weekend alone. Though disruptions were said to be limited on Friday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned that cuts could rise to as much as 20 percent by Thanksgiving weekend, one of the busiest travel periods of the year, if the shutdown drags on.
Since announcing the unprecedented plan, Duffy has insisted that such reductions are necessary to keep air travel safe, while some air traffic controllers and airport screeners go without pay. But prior to the FAA’s flight cuts, there had been little evidence to suggest that staffing shortages from the shutdown had been creating widespread disruptions, prompting some to accuse the Trump administration of weaponizing air travel as leverage aimed at getting Democrats to bend on the shutdown standoff.
That impasse is about healthcare, with Democrats refusing to vote for a spending bill that allows Obamacare subsidies to expire—a move that would cause the cost of health insurance for millions of Americans to skyrocket.
Duffy has denied the assertion that Republicans are needlessly using air travel as political leverage. Yet some Republicans, including Sen. Ted Cruz, have made a point of hanging blame for the flight disruptions on Democrats, accusing them of “flirting with disaster.”
The blame game comes as Republicans rejected a new offer by Democrats to end the shutdown on Friday that proposed a one-year extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies.