The first day of the Trump administration’s flight cuts at the nation’s 40 busiest airports passed without widespread disruption, but uncertainty about imminent cancellations and the overall stability of the air traffic control system has some travelers rethinking whether to fly at all.
Airlines canceled just under 800 flights on Friday because of the government mandate and planned for similar levels of reductions throughout the weekend, flight data shows. Under the Federal Aviation Administration’s directive, airlines must cut 10% of flights at 40 airports by next Friday if the government remains shut down and air traffic controllers are still working without pay.
But with little advance notice from airlines about forthcoming cancellations, travelers said they’re already changing plans for the weeks ahead, including Thanksgiving. They’re researching alternatives, like renting cars or getting on trains. They’re even considering just staying home.
But for some people staying put isn’t an option.
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid, 42, is the only overnight pediatrician at an inpatient ward at a hospital in Chico, California. If she misses her Saturday morning flight from Atlanta, the hospital will have to scramble for a replacement or even divert patients elsewhere.
“I have to trust that there’s someone in air traffic control that’s watching my flight and all of these flights,” Lawrence-Reid said. “You kind of hold your breath until you’re at cruising altitude and then you hold it again until you start to descend.”
Next week, Jennifer Holmes, from New Orleans, has neurosurgery scheduled at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota to excise a benign tumor on her hearing nerve. She scheduled the appointment months ago.
Leading up to her surgery, she was concerned about getting sick or her flight being delayed — anything that might keep her from having the procedure. She started researching alternatives to flying on Wednesday, when the government announced the flight cuts and well before any alert from her airline. Instead of a three-hour flight, she’ll take a 30-hour Amtrak train ride, which cost her $500 one way.
“It’s just blowing my mind how the common man, it’s like we’re just inconsequential to the whole thing,” said Holmes, a 56-year-old social worker. “Not everybody can pivot and do what I did. There’s real lives being affected here.”
Even for those who’ve arrived at their destinations, travel anxiety persists.
Eleni Bhatia, 19, a student at New York University, said she was experiencing travel issues during the shutdown even before flight reductions were announced. Last weekend, she was stranded in Chicago and had to rebook her flight after her initial plane was delayed. There was a minor crash on the runway, she said, that made her stressed. She eventually landed safely at LaGuardia Airport.
She said that after that experience, she was leaning toward staying in New York City for Thanksgiving instead of going home to Arizona. She was also anxious about her relatives flying for upcoming trips, something she was never nervous about before.
“I’m worried, like, are they flying safely or are people just kind of slacking off and not really doing the best that they can?” she said of air traffic controllers affected by the shutdown. “And I don’t blame them, because they’re not getting paid, but it is a little scary.”
Travelers said that the extra time they’ll spend on the road could have significant consequences.
Dana Defonte, 49, from New Jersey, has a mother-in-law in North Carolina who entered hospice care this past week. She and her husband are concerned, she said, that they won’t make it in time to see her mother-in-law before she dies. As it stands, she and her husband are planning to drive 9 hours to be there.
“We’re the only ones up here, so it’s just so hard. There’s guilt,” she said. “It’s an added layer of stress that nobody needs.”
Defonte’s son, who is in college in North Carolina, is also looking into alternatives for his Thanksgiving break, such as staying with family in Charlotte instead of flying home to New Jersey as planned.
Already a nervous flyer, Defonte worried about what the lack of pay and stressful work was doing to air traffic controllers.
“These people are human beings, you know, they’re not robots,” she said. “It does make me nervous. Like, are there enough people in those towers? Are they well rested?”
Other travelers have begun revising plans for Thanksgiving, one of the busiest travel periods of the year that on peak days sees about 3 million passengers screened by the Transportation Security Administration. While the TSA has not yet provided an estimate for how many travelers it expects this Thanksgiving, officials have warned that security lines could intensify as the shutdown drags on. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that the flight reductions could escalate if the shutdown continued into the holiday travel season.
Instead of flying from Florida to Alabama, Laura Adams and her husband will drive 10 hours to spend Thanksgiving with family. She said she’s feeling nervous that the shutdown will push air travel to a “breaking point.”
“Even though I’m really dreading this 10-hour drive, on balance, it just is going to make me feel a little more at ease about getting there on time and not having to deal with the potential stress and hassle of a delay or a cancellation,” said Adams, of Vero Beach, Florida. “I think that would just kind of ruin the holiday.”
Others said they are canceling trips altogether. Baruch Labunski, who lives in Toronto, had initially planned to fly to Arizona to celebrate Thanksgiving with a friend. But he’s decided against it because of the additional safety risks posed by the air traffic controller shortages during the shutdown. He and his friend will share a Thanksgiving dinner by Zoom video meeting instead.
“The traffic controllers are not there and it’s kind of scary,” Labunski, 45, said. “Holiday travel is extremely stressful, and with all the additional risks right now, I just don’t think it’s worth it.”
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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Source: The Garden Island
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