Since the United States government shut down on October 1st, 2025, around 5% of all flights departing or entering the United States have either been delayed or cancelled entirely. This has affected over 3.2 million passengers, and the flight delays may continue through Thanksgiving, which is the most traveled holiday in America, breaking its own flight record each year.
The shutdown, which ended November 12th, was the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, lasting 43 days. Previously the longest shutdown was in Donald Trump’s first term as president. That shutdown lasted 35 days, and was due to a disagreement between the House and the Senate regarding the funding of President Trump’s proposed wall on the Mexican border. The recent shutdown happened because the Republican and Democrat parties could not agree on a budget for the new fiscal year. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that there has been a permanent economic cost of 11 billion dollars from the six-week shutdown.
The shutdown is still severely impacting the FAA and all airports located in America. It is reported that approximately 30% of air traffic controllers have been absent on any given day. The rest of the 70% of employees have been working without pay. Also, their working conditions are severely worsened because of the lack of employees coming into work, so they need to work even harder with zero pay, putting tremendous amounts of stress on them. Their equipment that they work with hinders their ability to work quickly because it is extremely dated, with most airports still using floppy disks.
President Trump stated in USA Today, he “will be recommending a BONUS of $10,000 per person for distinguished service to our Country,” and that “anyone who doesn’t, will be substantially docked.” When asked about where he would get the money from, he did not give any real explanation, just saying “I don’t know – I’ll get it from someplace.” The President is very angry with the state of our airlines, and he urged the controllers who did not come into work to quit. The Trump administration ordered the 40 largest airports to cut flights by 6% on November 11th. There were plans to take that up to 10% by the following week, but with the shutdown deal, the FAA plans to keep flight cuts at 6%.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy plans to take the following weeks slowly in terms of reopening full access to all flights. He believes that over the next month or so, flights will start coming back slowly, about 2% at a time until all flights are back to how they were before the shutdown. With the new shutdown deal, air traffic controllers will begin receiving their pay as usual, and receive back pay for the time they missed. The employees who were furloughed, will now come back to work, so it will be easier for everyone. Hopefully, this will be a big morale boost for all controllers and other employees working at airlines, and there is still the possibility of a $10,000 bonus from President Trump.
Unfortunately, Duffy does not believe air travel will be fixed before Thanksgiving, so he warns fliers that there is potential for major flight disruptions. For higher-ups and politicians, the flight problems are causing them trouble monetarily, while for travelers and airport workers, the shutdown isn’t anything political, it’s personal. Until the airlines are back to normal, many people are stranded with no idea what to do. As of now, Sean Duffy thinks more than 10% of the flights on Thanksgiving weekend will be canceled.
