Air traffic control staffing shortages are taking a toll on airport operations. An increase in sick calls since the start of the federal government shutdown on Oct. 1 could be the cause.
On Monday evening, the FAA Air Traffic Control System Command Center instituted delay programs in Denver, Las Vegas, Newark and Phoenix due to staffing shortages. Meanwhile, the tower at Los Angeles County’s Burbank Airport had no staff for several hours.
Staffing shortfalls also mounted on Tuesday. The FAA plans to implement staffing-related delays for Tuesday at Houston Hobby and Houston Bush Intercontinental, as well as Chicago O’Hare, Boston, Newark and Nashville. Towers in Las Vegas and Philadelphia are also short-staffed, the agency reported.
Delay programs are a traffic-management measure, like ground delays.
In Denver, staffing-related delays averaged 40 minutes on Monday, the FAA said. Arriving flyers experienced similar delays in Phoenix, Las Vegas and Newark. Delays into Burbank averaged 2.5 hours. The Las Vegas delay program was implemented due to short staffing at the control center in Longmont, Colo., which is responsible for separating and sequencing aircraft, including some headed to Las Vegas.
Staffing-related ground delays aren’t unusual in U.S. airspace, with the FAA suffering from a nationwide shortage of air traffic controllers of nearly 3,000. Newark, for example, suffered repeated ground delays in the spring due to staffing shortages.
Still, the timing of Monday evening’s shortfalls suggests that the government shutdown could be a factor. Air traffic controllers are required to work during the shutdown, but they don’t get paid. They receive back pay after a shutdown ends.
Past shutdowns and air traffic control
During the federal government shutdown in 2018-19, Congress and President Trump put an end to the 35-day closure on the day that a surge in work absences by air traffic controllers in Jacksonville and the Washington area reverberated across U.S. airspace, leading to a ground halt on flights to New York LaGuardia and causing delays along the East Coast and beyond.
Earlier in the day Monday, DOT secretary Sean Duffy said there has been a slight uptick nationwide in controller sick calls since the shutdown began. But he added that there had been occasions in which specific control towers had seen call-out rates of approximately 50%. Duffy did not say how many times that has happened and for what airports.
Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) union, used a press conference on Monday with Duffy to call for a fast end to the shutdown.
“We need to bring this shutdown to a close so the Federal Aviation Administration and committed aviation safety professionals can put this distraction behind us and completely focus on their vital work,” he said.
