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Washington: Air travel chaos continued across the United States this weekend as airlines cancelled more than 1,700 flights and thousands more were delayed due to severe staffing shortages among air traffic controllers amid the ongoing government shutdown, CNN reported. According to CNN, citing data from flight tracking website FlightAware, over 1,500 flights were cancelled and more than 6,600 delayed on Saturday alone, while an additional 1,000 cancellations and hundreds of delays were reported for Sunday. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) attributed the widespread disruptions to staffing shortfalls as air traffic controllers and federal security screeners missed paychecks amid the budget impasse. The nation's busiest airports bore the brunt of the impact. According to CNN, New York City's three major airports --Newark Liberty International, LaGuardia, and John F. Kennedy International --experienced hours-long delays on Saturday. The FAA temporarily issued a ground stop for incoming flights to Newark after average arrival delays exceeded four hours earlier on Saturday. Departures from LaGuardia faced delays of up to 75 minutes, while flights in and out of JFK were held up by more than two hours on average. Elsewhere, arrivals at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport were delayed by nearly five and a half hours, while Washington, DC's Reagan National Airport saw nearly 80 flights cancelled on Friday and almost half of all arrivals delayed, CNN reported, citing FlightAware. Major airports in Chicago, Denver, Dallas-Fort Worth, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Phoenix, Seattle, and Orlando also reported significant disruptions. International travel was not spared, with major global hubs such as Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, Toronto's Pearson Airport, and Tokyo's Haneda Airport reporting cancellations reaching into double digits, CNN reported. This comes after the FAA ordered airlines to reduce domestic flights by 4 per cent at 40 of the country's busiest airports--a cut officials say is necessary to maintain safety standards during the shutdown. However, the reduction has failed to prevent cascading delays, CNN reported. As per CNN, if the government impasse continues, the FAA plans to escalate the mandatory flight reductions to 6 per cent by Tuesday, 8 per cent by Thursday, and 10 per cent by next Friday. US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, in an interview with Fox News, warned that the number could rise as high as 15-20 per cent if Congress does not resolve the budget deadlock soon. Former FAA Deputy Administrator Dan Elwell described the unfolding crisis as "uncharted territory," warning that the disruption could worsen and jeopardise upcoming holiday travel if the shutdown persists, CNN reported.
