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Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Sunday warned that air travel will worsen before the holidays as the U.S. enters the third day of the FAA's flight reductions. "It’s only going to get worse," Duffy said in an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN's "State of the Union." "I look to the two weeks before Thanksgiving. You’re going to see air travel be reduced to a trickle." Duffy added that a "substantial" number of people will miss celebrating the holidays with their families due to travel delays because of the FAA-mandated flight cancellations at 40 high-traffic airports that went into effect on Friday. The mandate to cut thousands of flights across the country comes as the FAA deals with shortages of air traffic controllers amid the dragging goverment shutdown. As essential workers, air traffic controllers are required to work during a government shutdown, even without pay. More than 4,200 flights have been delayed and 1,520 canceled so far on Sunday due to the mandate. Duffy said that on Saturday, there were 81 staffing triggers throughout the national airspace, noting that "18 of 22 controllers in Atlanta didn’t show up." The FAA-mandated flight cancellations mean a 4% reduction this weekend, which is set to ramp up to 6% by Tuesday, 8% by Thursday, and up to 10% by Friday. Despite the decreased air traffic, Duffy reiterated on Sunday that travel remains safe during the shutdown. "We’re working overtime to make sure that it is safe to travel," he said. "If we have staffing triggers in locations in the American airspace, what we will do is, we will slow traffic, which means you will have delays, and then airlines might cancel flights." Duffy, however, expressed concern about what lies ahead and stated that voting to reopen the government is the “best approach to get America back operational.” "Next Friday, it’s going to be at 10 percent to reduce the pressure on controllers," he said. "The problem is that, as I try to reduce the pressure by lowering flights, I have more controllers that keep not coming to work," Duffy added. "And so the pressure goes back up again."
