US TO REDUCE CAPACITY BY 10% AT 40 AIRPORTS: TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY

Thu 06 November 2025:

Flights will be slashed by 10% at 40 airports across the US starting Friday due to the ongoing government shutdown, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Wednesday.

“There is going to be a 10% reduction in capacity at 40 of our locations,” Duffy said at a news conference in Louisville, Kentucky.

“This is not based on what airline travel has more flights out of what location. This is about where is the pressure and how do we alleviate the pressure,” he said.

Speaking along with Duffy, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Bryan Bedford said they have decided that a 10% reduction in scheduled capacity would be appropriate to take the pressure off of air traffic controllers.

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“As we continue to see staffing triggers, there will be additional measures that will be taken in those specific markets,” Duffy said.

There have already been numerous delays at airports across the country — sometimes hours long — because the Federal Aviation Administration slows down or stops traffic temporarily anytime it is short on controllers. Last weekend saw some of the worst staff shortages, and on Sunday, flights at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey were delayed for several hours.

Earlier on Tuesday, Duffy and the head of the air traffic controllers union have both warned that the situation will only get worse the longer the shutdown continues and the financial pressure continues to grow on people who are forced to work without pay. FAA employees already missed one paycheck on October 28. Their next payday is scheduled for next Tuesday.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that he would order a 10% cut in flights at 40 major airports in the US, citing air traffic control safety concerns as a government shutdown hit a record 36th day https://t.co/X2fgobkXcb pic.twitter.com/vDFNcibNc6

— Reuters (@Reuters) November 6, 2025

“Many of the controllers said, ‘A lot of us can navigate missing one paycheck. Not everybody, but a lot of us can. None of us can manage missing two paychecks,’” Duffy said. “So if you bring us to a week from today, Democrats, you will see mass chaos. You will see mass flight delays. You’ll see mass cancellations, and you may see us close certain parts of the airspace, because we just cannot manage it, because we don’t have air traffic controllers.”

Normally, airlines strive to have at least 80 percent of their flights depart and arrive within 15 minutes of when they are scheduled. Aviation analytics firm Cirium said that since the shutdown began on October 1, the total number of delays overall has not fallen significantly below that goal because most of the disruptions so far have been no worse than what happens when a major thunderstorm moves across an airport.

But on Sunday, only about 56 percent of Newark’s departures were on time, and the Orlando airport reported that only about 70 percent of its flights were on time, according to Cirium.

As of midday Tuesday, there have been 1,932 flight delays reported across the US, according to www.FlightAware.com. That is lower than what is typical, although the FAA did say that flights in Phoenix were being delayed on Tuesday morning because of staffing shortages. Strong winds are also causing delays at the Newark and LaGuardia airports on Tuesday.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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