The airline struggles are now arriving in South Florida as Fort Lauderdale International Airport and Miami International Airport are among the 40 “high-volume” markets whose air traffic will be reduced by 10 percent.
The two airports will are a part of the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) reduction of flights at 40 major airports nationwide, as part of the ongoing government shutdown that has hampered much around the United States.
The Trump Administration is cutting flights by four percent on Friday and will increase to 10% next week.
“We are trying to lean into the fact that when we see pressures building in these 40 markets, we just can’t ignore it,” FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said at a press conference on Wednesday. “We are not going to wait for a safety problem to truly manifest itself when the early indicators are telling us we can take action today to prevent things from deteriorating.”
“If the pressures continue to build even after we take these measures, we’ll come back and take additional measures,” Bedford said.
The developments have stirred up lots of chatter, highlighted by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s appearance on Fox & Friends on Thursday where he discussed the delays and cancellations, citing air traffic controllers not showing up for work as basis.
“Controllers are making decisions on their family and their income, and some of them are not coming to work,” Duffy said (h/t Miami New Times). “It’s a problem. I want them to come to work and do their jobs, but that’s the reality that I deal with, so you’ve seen a lot of delays and cancellations through the airspace. It changes every single day based on which controllers are coming to work and which ones are not.”
The is a possibility that the FAA could cut additional flights if the government shutdown continues and staffing issues carry on.
