A government shutdown at midnight on Tuesday could carry serious consequences for air travel, with airlines warning that air safety could be impacted if Congress doesn’t find a short-term solution for funding.
Why It Matters
A government shutdown could affect thousands of air travel employees, leading to Transportation Safety Administration personnel working without pay and creating longer wait times and lines for passengers, according to airline officials and industry groups.
A shutdown would slow air traffic control hiring and training and raise other issues affecting air travel.
Newsweek reached out to the FAA for comment via email.
What To Know
Republicans in the House have moved forward a short term funding plan, but the Senate rejected it over concerns that it did not include health care subsidy extensions while also facing larger spending reductions criticized by Democrats.
After a meeting on Monday with President Donald Trump and Republican and Democratic lawmakers, there was still no agreement over how to keep the government funded, meaning a shutdown looms at midnight.
How will airlines be affected by the government shutdown?
The Modern Skies Coalition has issued a letter to Congress with concerns over how the government shutdown would affect the FAA’s hiring and training alongside larger safety issues across U.S. air travel.
“Government shutdowns harm the U.S. economy and degrade the redundancies and margins of safety that our National Airspace System (NAS) is built upon,” the coalition, which represents United, American, Delta, Southwest and others, wrote. “In fact, short-term shutdowns of just a few days, or even threatened shutdowns that are averted in the eleventh hour negatively affect the NAS and the traveling public.”
Economically, the shutdown could result in $3 billion in lost economic activity over just 35 days, as this was the case for the shutdown that took place from 2018 to 2019.
How will the FAA be impacted?
The FAA would be forced to suspend hiring and training, potentially even closing down training academies.
Currently, the FAA has a shortage of 3,800 air traffic controllers, and a government shutdown could only exacerbate the situation.
How will airports change?
From a traveler’s perspective, the federal shutdown could lead to longer airport lines, disrupted flights, delays and even cancellations.
Air traffic controllers and the Transportation Security Administration employees who perform airport security will be working without pay, which could lead to possible no shows on the job.
What People Are Saying
The Modern Skies Coalition wrote in a letter: “We strongly supported Congress’s $12.5 billion downpayment toward air traffic control modernization, and we continue to advocate in support of Secretary Duffy’s acknowledgment that additional funding of at least $19 billion will be needed to completely build a new air traffic control system. A government shutdown at this stage would jeopardize the important progress that we all have made on these efforts thus far.”
Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek: “While government shutdowns thankfully don’t equate to a complete shutdown for all airlines, the long-term effects can be chaotic, especially if a shutdown goes on for a significant amount of time. Training air traffic controllers, TSA agents, and everyone involved in the safety of flyers is stopped in the event of a government shutdown, and seeing as some of these roles already have many unfilled positions, the pipeline of air travel security takes a sizable hit.”
Webster University adjunct professor William Hall told Newsweek: “In my view, the potential impact of yet another shutdown of the federal government on the American people would be highly destructive, if not in fact, devastating. What now appears to be a reoccurring pattern of a shutdown of the federal government, occurring during the Trump administrations, is also both highly troubling as well as seemingly highly unnecessary. The responsibility to develop and pass an appropriate budget, would also appear to be among the most necessary and important responsibilities of the President of the United States…”
What Happens Next
Since historically, the airline industry has lost billions of dollars from shutdowns, airlines could face long term consequences, Beene said.
“Past government shutdowns have cost the industry billions of dollars that were never recouped,” Beene said. “In the short-term, frequent fliers won’t notice too many changes at the airport, but the long-term disruption could have lasting results.”
Hall said long term, Americans’ frustrations over continued government shutdowns could show up in terms of how they vote in the impending midterm elections.
“I believe most Americans are increasingly growing weary of these failures to perform the administration of government, successfully in the best interest of the American people,” Hall said. “The 2026 midterm elections may ultimately represent and reflect a referendum on the level of approval or not of the performance of the current Trump led GOP administration.”