The Department of Transportation (DOT) could close some parts of US airspace if enough air traffic controllers don’t show up for work, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Tuesday.
“If you take us a week from today, Democrats, you will see enormous chaos,” Duffy said at a news conference Tuesday. “You will see massive flight delays, you will see numerous cancellations, and you may see us closing certain parts of the airspace because we simply cannot manage it because we do not have the air traffic controllers.”
Controllers received a partial paycheck at the start of the shutdown, and last week they received none. On Thursday, Duffy said, drivers will receive another pay stub that says $0. He noted that many drivers can’t go without two paychecks.
Screeners, like Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers, are essential employees and must work during federal government shutdowns despite not receiving pay. Last week, the absence of TSA and Federal Aviation Administration employees caused long security waits in Houston and delays at airports across the country.
“I can’t just find money and pay air traffic controllers,” Duffy said. “This is not how our constitution or our government works.”
Earlier this year, the DOT hired 2,000 drivers to try to address a decades-long shortage, but Duffy said the closure “will have an impact.”
“These young people have a decision to make: Do they want to go into a profession where there may be a closure and they won’t get paid? That has affected our pipeline of new employees,” he said.
Duffy also reaffirmed that if the airspace was not safe, the DOT would “shut it down.” He noted that some controllers might work two positions instead of one due to absences, which is allowed and safe, but does carry greater risk.
“We delay flights, cancel flights or tell airlines to cancel flights if we don’t have enough controllers to manage our skies effectively and safely,” Duffy said. “With this shutdown, it would be dishonest to say that there isn’t more risk injected into the system. There is more risk in the system.”
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