FAA furloughs kick in, some flight delays appear
Commercial airline flights started backing up and delayed some travelers Monday, a day after air traffic controllers started going on furlough because of government spending cuts.
Information from the FAA and others showed that flying Sunday was largely uneventful, with most flights on time. There were delays in parts of Florida, but those were caused by thunderstorms.
Mark Duell at the flight tracking website FlightAware said that John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports in New York indicated delays due to lower staffing starting late Sunday evening. The FAA website said that flights from Philadelphia and Orlando, Fla., into John F. Kennedy, LaGuardia and Westchester County airports were delayed due to staffing issues.
The trade group Airlines for America, which represents the airlines and had predicted a big traffic snarl, said Sunday evening that it was “not seeing a significant impact at this point.” A spokeswoman said the group would continue to monitor the situation, and urged flyers to stay in contact with their airlines.
Delays were also affecting travelers in Los Angeles. The FAA said late Sunday night that staffing cuts were causing delays averaging more than three hours for flights arriving at Los Angeles International Airport. The agency did not say how many flights were affected.
Airport spokesman Marshall Lowe said about 70 flights had delays of about an hour or more Sunday, but he could not say what role the staffing cuts played in the delays.
The FAA said that “relatively good weather” and light traffic, which is typical of Sundays, helped keep delays in check. The agency said it would be working with airlines “to minimize the delay impacts of lower staffing” as the busy summer travel season approaches.
Government budget cuts that kicked in last month are forcing the FAA and other agencies to cut their spending. FAA officials have said they have no choice but to furlough all 47,000 agency employees, including nearly 15,000 controllers. Each employee will lose one day of work every other week. The FAA has said that planes will have to take off and land less frequently, so as not to overload the remaining controllers on duty.
Airline trade groups and the country’s biggest pilots union sued the FAA on Friday to try to stop the furloughs. They predicted that the furloughs would delay or cancel flights for as many as one out of every three airline passengers across the country. Airlines have also directed their customers to tell the FAA to find other ways to cut costs.