JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 The federal government shutdown has left air traffic controllers in Jacksonville potentially working without pay, adding financial stress to an already demanding job, said Dan McCabe, regional vice president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association Southern Region.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese people go to work every day. They deal with stress. It\u2019s what they\u2019re trained to do,\u201d McCabe said. <\/p>\n
RELATED: Transportation secretary says government shutdown adds stress on air traffic controllers<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cBut now, they\u2019re done being paid. They got their partial paycheck two weeks ago. They\u2019ll get a zero paycheck next, and financial stress is creeping into the building.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the shutdown, McCabe emphasized that operations remain normal. <\/p>\n \u201cNo reduced hours, no consolidating positions. It\u2019s business as usual. People are still being trained.\u201d<\/p>\n MORE: Congressman Aaron Bean introduces legislation to ensure pay for air traffic controllers amid government shutdown<\/a><\/p>\n The air traffic control industry faces a staffing crisis, with a nationwide shortage of 3,800 fully certified controllers out of about 14,000 needed, according to McCabe.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a two to three year process to get fully certified,\u201d McCabe explained.<\/p>\n He offered a simple analogy to explain the impact of being short on controllers: \u201cIt\u2019s like going to a grocery store, right? And instead of six checkout lines open, maybe four checkout lines open. You\u2019re still getting your groceries. You may wait a little longer.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSafety is static. You can\u2019t let safety fall by any margin. Efficiency is what changes,\u201d McCabe said. \u201cIf you\u2019re short on controllers but demand is still there, there are going to be delays.\u201d<\/p>\n To watch the full interview with Dan McCabe on the challenges air traffic controllers face amid the federal shutdown and staffing shortages, along with conversations with Ron Salem on Jacksonville\u2019s health care fund deficit and Michelle McManamon on Operation New Uniform\u2019s veteran career readiness programs, tune in to This Week in Jacksonville<\/a>.<\/p>\n Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 The federal government shutdown has left air traffic controllers in Jacksonville potentially working without pay,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9937,2363,2582,116,118,117],"class_list":{"0":"post-10218","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-atc","9":"tag-federal","10":"tag-government-shutdown","11":"tag-jacksonville","12":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","13":"tag-jacksonville-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}