Transportation and travel groups won a short-term victory after the partial government shutdown concluded in January, but the industry is still moving to secure a long-term funding measure to avoid another partial government shutdown in less than two weeks.
“We’re all together working together to make sure we don’t have another shutdown,” said Charles Leocha, president and co-founder of Travelers United, a consumer advocacy group.
The partial government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history and one that resulted from a dispute over border wall funding, caused staffing shortages among air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration officers who were forced to work without pay.
Hours before the shutdown ended, American Federation of Government Employees National President J. David Cox Sr. warned that “being forced to work without pay has transformed the situation to one where the safety and security of the flying public is now at risk.”
“It is simply impossible to maintain an elite level of safety and security with a workforce that is exhausted, hungry, and financially anxious. It is well known that stress — and hunger — undermine mental acuity,” Cox said in a statement on Jan. 25. “[Transportation security officers’] jobs require an intense attention to detail, high emotional intelligence, and full environmental awareness.”
That same day, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that several airports, including LaGuardia Airport in New York, were experiencing air traffic delays due to staffing issues at a Federal Aviation Administration regional air traffic center — an incident that Leocha characterized as the “tipping point” in reopening the government.
Shortly thereafter, President Trump announced that he was on board with a temporary funding package that would keep the government open until Feb. 15. A long-term funding measure has yet to be approved.
“Although the news today is positive, we must not lose focus on the short-term nature of this agreement, and the need to continue to make our voice heard to avoid another shutdown on February 15, 2019,” National Air Traffic Controllers Association President Paul Rinaldi said in a statement after the government reopened.
Rinaldi said that, absent a “stable, predictable funding stream,” the National Airspace System suffers and air traffic control services — staffing, hiring, and training, among other things — are unable to be adequately supported.
“The constant funding crises that arise from stop-and-go funding continue to wreak havoc on our system and perpetuate the current staffing crisis, which has resulted in a 30-year low of certified professional controllers,” Rinaldi said.
NATCA did not disclose specific actions that the group plans to take to prevent another partial shutdown, but Rinaldi said in his statement that the group remains “hopeful that today’s agreement will lead to a long-term appropriations bill that prevents another senseless shutdown.”
Leocha also said that he and other transportation and travel groups, who worked with lawmakers and members of the administration and pressured them to end the partial shutdown, will continue their efforts to ensure that a long-term spending measure is passed.
As a result, Leocha said the industry is ultimately optimistic that another partial shutdown will be avoided.
“I think that, in terms of the aviation sector, there’s a lot of hope that there’s not going to be another shutdown,” Leocha said. “That’s what everybody is sort of operating on right now.”
But even if a long-term spending measure is approved, Leocha anticipates that the “real impact” of the shutdown will continue for months as agencies recover from a backlog of items that were put on the back burner, such as air traffic control education and certification processes.
“It’s like a domino effect,” Leocha said.
