(Washington) Increasing flight delays and cancellations are feared in the United States due to the budgetary blockage which has paralyzed part of the federal state for a week, while Congress still did not manage to break the deadlock on Wednesday.
The Senate rejected for the sixth time a Republican text which proposes a simple extension of the current budget until the end of November, as well as a Democratic text which plans to maintain certain health spending.
A week after the start of this “shutdown” which has put hundreds of thousands of civil servants on technical unemployment, concern is growing to see queues lengthening at airports due to increasing absenteeism of air traffic controllers and transport security agents.
Air traffic controllers are considered to have an “essential” public service mission and are not laid off during a “shutdown”.
But since, like all federal civil servants, they are not paid as long as the paralysis lasts, some prefer to call in sick rather than work without pay.
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told reporters on Monday that a “slight” increase in the number of air traffic controllers on sick leave had already been noted.
PHOTO JULIA DEMAREE NIKHINSON, ASSOCIATED PRESS
United States Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy
“Our priority is security,” he said from Newark airport, a suburb of New York.
“And so, if we have additional sick leave, we will reduce the flow to a rate consistent with the safety of Americans,” the secretary added.
“On the back foot”
Staff shortage problems are already affecting nearly a dozen airports across the country, notably in Chicago and Boston, according to the FAA, the American civil aviation regulator.
“As Secretary Duffy has said, there are increasing staffing shortages across the air transportation system,” the agency said in a statement.
“When this happens, the FAA slows down traffic to certain airports to ensure safe operations,” she said.
Since the start of the budget impasse in Congress, each camp has entrenched itself in its positions, and no end is in sight for the moment.
Some federal civil servants will miss their first salary on Friday, and pressure is mounting on elected officials to end the crisis.
The leader of the Democratic minority in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, told the press on Wednesday that the Republicans were “on the back foot”. The New York senator pointed to numerous polls which, according to him, show a lack of support for the arguments of the presidential majority.
At the same time, Donald Trump continues to threaten serious consequences if the opposition does not give in. He thus affirmed on Tuesday that federal civil servants placed on technical unemployment would not automatically receive their salary arrears, despite a law to this effect adopted during his first mandate.
A position to which many officials, even the majority, were opposed.
On Wednesday, it was the turn of more than 1.3 million military personnel not to receive their pay as planned, a significant deadline in a country where they have a special place in the minds of the general public.
