(Washington) The budgetary paralysis in the United States threatens to cause significant disruptions in air traffic, Republican parliamentarians warned Thursday, who say they fear increased absenteeism among air traffic controllers as the big family holiday of Thanksgiving approaches.
After more than three weeks of blockage in Congress, Donald Trump’s Republicans and the Democratic opposition still cannot agree to adopt a budget and lift this “shutdown”.
Each camp blames each other for the crisis. Democrats accuse the presidential majority of ignoring a coming explosion in health care costs for Americans, while Republicans denounce unjustifiable obstruction by the opposition.
According to estimates from the Bipartisan Policy Center think tank, more than 700,000 federal civil servants are unemployed without pay. Nearly 700,000 others are forced to continue working, but without being paid, until the blockade ends.
More than 60,000 air traffic controllers and transport security officers are in this situation. But rather than working without pay for several weeks, some prefer to call in sick.
The authorities fear staff shortages which could lead to delays and cancellations of flights, but also long queues to go through security at airports.
“We are approaching the holiday season,” noted the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, also noting that the American football season was currently in full swing.
Normally, 5% of flight delays are the result of staff shortages, but this figure has jumped to more than 50%, the elected official said at a press conference.
Some 19,000 flights were delayed between Saturday and Monday, and this figure will “only increase”, he added.
The upheaval in air transport due to a lack of controllers was one of the major reasons for the end in 2019 of the previous blockage, during Donald Trump’s first term.
This “shutdown” lasted 35 days, a record that could be broken on November 5.
