A “surge” in air traffic controllers calling out of work caused widespread delays in major US airports, a government aviation agency has said. <\/p>\n
Half of the 30 major airports in the US were experiencing staff shortages, including in New York, where 80% of air traffic controllers were absent heading into the weekend, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).<\/p>\n
Nearly 13,000 air traffic controllers have been working without pay because of the US government shutdown, which is entering its second month. <\/p>\n
“After 31 days without pay, air traffic controllers are under immense stress and fatigue,” the agency said in a social media post. <\/p>\n
Air traffic controllers, like other essential federal workers, are required to work without pay during the shutdown, including Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents. <\/p>\n
The aviation agency called on lawmakers to end the shutdown so that workers “receive the pay they’ve earned and travelers can avoid further disruptions and delays”. <\/p>\n
The FAA said the shortages mean it has had to reduce the flow of air traffic “to maintain safety”. <\/p>\n
“This may result in delays or cancellations,” it added.<\/p>\n
On Friday, about 6,000 flights within the US were delayed and nearly 500 were cancelled, according to FlightAware. <\/p>\n
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told Fox News that air traffic controllers were under a great deal of stress. <\/p>\n
“These are people that oftentimes live paycheck to paycheck,” he said. “They’re concerned about gas in the car. They’re concerned about child care and mortgages.”<\/p>\n
Lawmakers are at an impasse as a Republican-led bill to fund the government has failed to pass the Senate over a dozen times. <\/p>\n
In exchange for re-opening the government, Democrats are seeking to extend tax credits that make health insurance cheaper for millions of Americans.<\/p>\n
They are also calling for a reverse to President Donald Trump’s cuts to Medicaid, a government healthcare programme used by millions of elderly, disabled and low-income people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A “surge” in air traffic controllers calling out of work caused widespread delays in major US airports, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,75,348],"class_list":["post-256111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}