Within 72 hours, vast swaths of American airspace face total collapse. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy laid down the gauntlet: unless Democrats relent, “mass chaos” at our nation’s airports is inevitable.
Congressional inaction has plunged the Federal Aviation Administration into a logistical nightmare. Nearly half of America’s major air-traffic control centers are now dangerously understaffed. Thirteen thousand controllers are on the payroll—but no paychecks are coming—and many have walked off the job. The result: flight delays have spiked, cancellations are skyrocketing, and a full shutdown of key air corridors is now squarely on the table.
Duffy didn’t mince words. “If this shutdown drags into next week,” he warned, “we’ll be forced to close parts of our airspace. We simply cannot manage flights at this staffing level.” That’s not alarmism. It’s the raw arithmetic of an operational force stretched beyond breaking.
In New York’s busy airspace, 80 percent of scheduled controllers called out sick last week. In Los Angeles, Newark and Denver, staffing shortfalls have already inflicted unprecedented disruptions. Over one weekend alone, 84 percent of delays traced back to controller and TSA absenteeism. Travelers saw domestic flights scrapped, passengers stranded on tarmacs, holiday plans upended.
Worse still, controllers on duty are logging relentless overtime. One man, trained to manage eight flight paths, now juggles a dozen. Others are covering entire facilities while peers are reassigned to understaffed posts. This is no recipe for safety—it’s a powder keg.
Every day without funding intensifies the danger. Controllers need a paycheck to feed their families. TSA agents need to put gas in their cars. Yet Democrats in the Senate have rejected stopgap funding 14 times, choosing political leverage—tied to Obamacare giveaways—over public safety.
The shutdown has morphed into a partisan ploy that is literally grounding Americans. Regional airlines report revenue losses in the tens of millions. Local economies—tourism, hospitality, freight services—are hemorrhaging. The pain will only deepen, and it will be felt coast to coast.
Congressional Democrats claim they’re protecting working families by demanding healthcare concessions. In truth, they’re holding everyday Americans hostage. While they play chicken in Washington, our skies—and the livelihoods tied to them—are on the chopping block.
It doesn’t have to be this way. A clean continuing resolution would restore pay, stabilize staffing, and avert the looming airspace shutdown. Republicans have offered it repeatedly. We stand ready to keep the government—and the economy—running.
Every missed flight, every canceled connection, every stranded passenger is a direct result of Washington’s failure to prioritize safety over political gamesmanship. The responsibility is clear. The solution is clear. Now, one side must make the commonsense choice.
Our message to Democrats is simple: end this shutdown. Restore airline worker pay. Keep America flying. Anything less is reckless—and utterly unacceptable.
