Air traffic controllers deny credit for ending latest shutdown

The political debate over the government shutdown has elevated one group of federal workers above the rest: air traffic controllers.

Because of their role in protecting public safety, controllers are required to work during a shutdown without pay, adding stress to a workplace facing severe staffing shortages and raising concerns that workers calling in sick could bring the nation’s airspace into disarray.

A lack of work by controllers was widely cited as the reason the last shutdown ended in 2019. But that assumption was overblown, according to controllers, air safety experts and congressional aides from both parties, some of whom said the Trump administration and its allies are stoking fears of a controller walkout amid the current shutdown to pressure lawmakers into reaching a deal to end it. END.

“This narrative is false,” said Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. He argued that staffing declines in 2019 and last week, which led the FAA to slow air traffic at some major airports, were concerning but normal.

“The delays before the closure were longer than the delays of the last three days,” Mr. Daniels said, adding: “We should not be the ropes in this tug-of-war.”

The 2019 shutdown was entering its 35th day when lawmakers learned the FAA had ordered a ground shutdown at LaGuardia Airport due to a shortage of controllers at two other East Coast airports. Hours later, President Trump announced from the White House Rose Garden that Democrats and Republicans had reached an agreement to reopen the government. That evening, the House and Senate passed a bill to this effect.

But according to experts, congressional aides and contemporary media outlets, the air service delays were just “icing on the cake,” as one official put it in 2019, for a Republican Party and a president already determined to exit a losing battle.

“I don’t think it’s just air traffic control personnel who have raised the issue or drawn attention to it,” said Michael McCormick, a professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University who previously led the FAA’s air traffic control operations, including through multiple shutdowns. “I think other key areas of government have also been affected, like the TSA”

The weekend before the 2019 shutdown ended, the TSA reported that 10% of its employees called in sick, a three-fold increase from normal levels. Significant furloughs at the Internal Revenue Service had also begun to collide with the start of tax filing season, delaying processing times and refunds. And Senate Republicans were fed up with opinion polls showing the public largely blaming the Republican Party for the shutdown, and were threatening mutiny.

This shutdown, which began a few days before Christmas, marked a major political shift in Washington. Just two weeks later, Republican Party control of both houses of Congress and the presidency gave way to a divided legislature.

Forty new House Democrats were sworn in, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, was reinstalled as speaker. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican majority leader, appeared to walk away from the negotiations, which centered on whether Congress would fund Mr. Trump’s border wall, and left them to the President and Ms. Pelosi.

During the debates, the Senate did not vote on bills intended to fund the government until the day before the shutdown ended. And a sign of the frustration that had been building for weeks, six Republican senators that afternoon supported the Democrats’ proposal to reopen the government without border wall money.

According to reports at the time, Mr. McConnell convinced Mr. Trump to concede that evening. But it was not until the next day, several hours after the widely publicized airport delays, that Mr. Trump publicly backtracked.

This time around the policy is different and the focus on air travel as a factor in ending the shutdown appears to be happening sooner.

Sean Duffy, the Transportation Secretary, made several public appearances last week to highlight the plight of air traffic controllers and what he called an “uptick” in absences, presenting them as a potential inflection point in the shutdown. Like the rest of the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers, he blamed the funding impasse on Democrats.

“At the end of the day, these controllers are stressed and they’re rebelling against the shutdown because they might not get paid,” Mr. Duffy said in an interview with Fox News, saying that 53 percent of last week’s delays were caused by staffing problems.

During an appearance on Fox Business, Mr. Duffy suggested that as many as 10 percent of controllers were not showing up for work, assuming they were staging an “attack on Democrats.” He also threatened to fire “problem children” who failed to show up for work.

“If some of our employees aren’t as dedicated as we need them to be, we’re going to let them go,” he said.

Air traffic controllers were particularly sensitive to the suggestion that they had quit their jobs before even missing their paychecks. They are expected to receive partial pay on Tuesday, which will not include the time they have worked since the shutdown began. They will receive back pay once the shutdown ends.

The controllers’ union does not dispute the FAA’s assertion that last week’s delays were caused by absences that left some crews with only about half the necessary staff. But its members affirm that this is not a phenomenon specific to closure.

According to a recent FAA release, the agency had only 11,683 certified professional controllers and certified professional controllers in training, a far cry from the 14,633 the agency said it needed at the end of last year. Union leaders say that has caused many towers to operate with severely reduced staffing levels, meaning it would only take one or two controllers calling in sick to trigger a ground shutdown or other delays.

“Every day there’s an installation where we have to do alternative procedures, because there aren’t enough air traffic controllers for that,” Mr. Daniels said. He cited the example of a tower in Midland, Texas, which he said had only 45 percent of its positions filled and had turned over at least part of its radar operations to another air traffic control center in Fort Worth.

“You see the result of an extremely fragile system that we have to deal with,” he said.

Sarah Binder, a political science professor at George Washington University, said the focus on controllers was politically strategic, especially in the wake of the Jan. 29 collision between a commercial plane and a military helicopter outside Washington that killed 67 people, raising public awareness about air travel safety.

“The parties want to get the public on their side,” she said, adding that delayed and missed flights were a “visceral pain that people can see and understand” – and that is linked to Washington.

“That’s part of why the focus is on air traffic and airport delays,” she said.

But with this closure, other parts of the airline industry could end up affecting passengers sooner.

Last week, TSA “calls” began to increase, including as many as 50 of the approximately 225 agents at Philadelphia International Airport who missed work or showed up late Monday.

“A lot of people don’t want to get their last dollar until they get ready,” said Johnny Jones, secretary-treasurer of TSA Council 100 of the American Federation of Government Employees, the union representing TSA officials.

“We want to come to work, we are ready to come to work, we are going to work as long as we can,” Mr. Jones added. “But you know what? Gas stations don’t accept IOUs. Daycares don’t accept IOUs”

On Friday, TSA workers, who also must work without pay until the shutdown ends, began receiving part of their final paychecks until the government reopens.

A TSA representative said last week that recent calls have not caused delays in airport operations.