HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — According to the FAA, Friday’s ground delays at George Bush Intercontinental Airport and Hobby Airport are due to staffing shortages.
As the government shutdown continues, some airport workers are expected to work without pay. However, experts at ABC told Eyewitness News that workers might not continue showing up for a variety of reasons.
ABC experts said that during shutdowns, we can see federal airport workers calling out, as some can no longer afford childcare, or others choose to take on a second job to bring in a paycheck.
As these current ground delays continue, flights will still come in and out of the airport, but they will be more spread out to ensure the smaller staff keep up.
At the peak on Friday, the FAA reported delays of around an hour for both George Bush and Hobby.
“If you don’t have enough controllers to safely handle the airplanes that are coming into your airspace or into your airport, they are not going to allow it to happen, and that’s when they would but in a ground stop, and again that could last anywhere from a few minutes to several hours,” Sam Sweeney, ABC’s transportation reporter, said.
We are inching closer to the busy holiday flying season. Some groups are now pushing for lawmakers to pass what is called a clean continued resolution. This would fund the government without enacting any policy changes. Airlines like United, American, Southwest, and Delta are all on board.
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