Copyright CBS News
Hundreds of flights across the country were cancelled on Friday because of cuts mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration to relieve strain on air traffic controllers who are not being paid due to the government shutdown. BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport saw 22 flights cancelled to destinations including Orlando, Boston, Chicago, Raleigh, and Fort Lauderdale. More flights will be cut until the government shutdown ends. "Conditions at BWI Marshall this morning are calm and orderly, with no significant lines for airline ticketing or the TSA security checkpoints," an airport spokesman said Friday. "Please open the government soon. This is crazy..." Kate Williams was one of the travelers who received the dreaded notification. "Right as the workday was ending Thursday, we tried to scramble around 5 o'clock. They let us know that the flight was going to be cancelled for the 8:45 flight that we had Friday night," she told WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren. Williams and her family were trying to get to Miami, where they booked a cruise this weekend on Royal Caribbean's Icon of the Seas, but they felt a world away from the world's largest cruise ship when they could not find another seat. "You could see the flights going away as you were looking at the options. It was like one seat, three seats. There weren't enough for all five of us to fly together," Williams said. "It was very stressful thinking about a 17-hour car ride with a one-year-old and two other children. It was a long trip to try to wrap our heads around." Luckily, Southwest was able to book them on a flight to West Palm Beach, saving the cruise vacation. "And then we'll have to rent a car and drive the rest of the way," Williams said. She had a message to the politicians in Washington, D.C. "Please open the government soon. This is crazy. Get people back to work and travel again," Williams said. The Williams' family flight is one of 22 cancelled today at BWI Marshall out of almost 600 total at the airport. BWI is one of 40 airports impacted by the nationwide flight reductions. Plan B? With flight cuts underway, Deanne, who declined to give her last name, spent thousands of dollars booking refundable extra flights—a 'Plan B' for her family so they would make it to her birthday trip to see a rodeo in Dallas. "I was taking no chances. I didn't know what I was going to have to do, but I was going to do it," she told WJZ. "You can always get a refund, flight credits, or whatever, so that's why I thought ahead to book for tomorrow in case they got cancelled." Patrick Keller is flying on business, and the strain on air traffic controllers made him nervous for his safety. "Safety first, cancel everything if that means you keep people safe," he said. Mike Christine, a union representative for controllers, said, "They're growing increasingly stressed. They're frustrated, and BWI is one of our better staffed facilities." The cuts start at 4 percent of flights on Friday, ramping up daily to 10 percent of flights by next week. They impact all the region's airports, including Reagan National and Dulles. "You're going to get burned out, and that's what we're seeing now," U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told reporters at Reagan National Friday. "There's a higher level of fatigue with the controllers because they've been doing this for a long time as we've tried to mitigate the impact of the shutdown." Airlines are notifying affected passengers directly, and many are waiving cancellation and rebooking fees. BWI advises travelers to arrive two hours early for flights and check with their carrier to make sure their flight is not impacted.
