Flights throughout the United States will be reduced to a “trickle” leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday due to increasing air traffic controller staffing shortages during the record-breaking government shutdown, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in an interview on Nov. 9.
Last week, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced it was beginning a multi-step slowdown of U.S. air travel on Nov. 7 with a 4 percent reduction in flights at 40 major airports. That rate will increase to 6 percent on Nov. 11; to 8 percent on Nov. 13; and finally to 10 percent on Nov. 14, according to the FAA’s emergency order—the first of its kind in history.
