More than 1000 flights scheduled for Friday and Saturday were cancelled, according to tracking website FlightAware.<\/p>\n
Travellers have been kept waiting for their flights at a number of airports across the United States over the past couple of days as the federal Government shutdown continues. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
The most affected airports were Reagan National in Washington, Denver International and Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, according to data analysed by AFP.<\/p>\n
According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), travellers at Reagan National were experiencing average delays of four hours, with 90-minute waits in Phoenix and one-hour delays in Chicago and San Francisco.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is frustrating. We don\u2019t need to be in this position,\u201d American Airlines CEO Robert Isom told CNBC.<\/p>\n
The upheaval means ordinary Americans are now directly feeling the impacts of the Washington budget fight that has shut down much of the Government.<\/p>\n
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed Democrats for the shutdown, saying they should vote to reopen the Government.<\/p>\n
Flight reductions at major airports are set to increase as the Government crisis continues without a funding deal. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Democrats are going to go home this weekend, and they\u2019ve kept the Government shut down, that\u2019s shameful,\u201d Duffy told reporters at Reagan National Airport.<\/p>\n
In a post on Truth Social, President Donald Trump on Saturday also called on Senate lawmakers to remain in Washington until an agreement to end the shutdown.<\/p>\n
Republicans control Congress, but Democrats have said they will refuse to sign off on the majority party\u2019s budget plans, including severe healthcare cuts.<\/p>\n
The flight reduction measures come as the country enters its busiest travel time of the year, with the Thanksgiving holiday weeks away.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will get serious if things drag on to Thanksgiving,\u201d retiree Werner Buchi told AFP at New York\u2019s LaGuardia airport as he waited for his daughter to arrive on a flight from Wilmington, North Carolina.<\/p>\n
Rhonda, 65, who arrived at LaGuardia without a hitch from Portland, Maine, worried about holiday plans \u201cthat could be ruined because people won\u2019t talk to each other. This is hurting a lot of people\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n
American Airlines said in a statement that its scheduled reduction amounted to 220 flight cancellations each day.<\/p>\n
Delta Air Lines said it was cutting about 170 flights scheduled for Friday, while broadcaster CNN reported Southwest Airlines axed about 100 flights set for that day.<\/p>\n
More than 6800 US flights were delayed Thursday with some 200 cancellations, FlightAware data showed, with passengers facing long lines at security checkpoints.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration sought to reassure people that flying remains safe.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s safe to fly today, tomorrow, and the day after because of the proactive actions we are taking,\u201d Duffy said on social media on Friday.<\/p>\n
But many in high-stress aviation-related jobs are now calling in sick and potentially working second jobs to pay their bills.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 1000 flights scheduled for Friday and Saturday were cancelled, according to tracking website FlightAware. Travellers have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[20299,2840,2438,74,534,138,20703,71088,3588,8449,48338,14051,6562,4999,266,78,130,111,139,69,19719,86583,1534,7538,9939,35836,131,3946,2179,9938,3040,3608,1339,19135],"class_list":["post-124050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-20299","tag-across","tag-administration","tag-after","tag-amid","tag-business","tag-cancelled","tag-controllers","tag-cut","tag-ease","tag-fallout","tag-federal","tag-flights","tag-friday","tag-government","tag-in","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-ordered","tag-reductions","tag-saturday","tag-shutdown","tag-states","tag-strain","tag-than","tag-traffic","tag-trump","tag-united","tag-us","tag-were","tag-without","tag-working"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}