Air traffic controllers say FAA’s 10% flight cuts won’t ease shutdown strain

The FAA has ordered airlines to scale back flights by up to 10% at 40 of the nation’s busiest airports over the next week, a phased reduction that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said was meant to “alleviate building risk” as controllers continue working without pay.

A controller at a major center in the Midwest said that the shutdown has only magnified problems that were already eroding morale and compromising focus.

“Ten percent of flights being canceled throughout the day isn’t going to impact us whatsoever,” he said. “The problem isn’t the number of flights on paper, it’s the number of qualified people in the room.”

He said the FAA’s decision to scale back flights is “performative,” arguing that it does little to relieve workload or fatigue inside the facilities where controllers are already stretched to their limits. “We’re still working the same amount of traffic with fewer people,” he said.

Asked whether it remains safe to fly, he paused.

“Yes, it’s still safe,” he said. “Is it as safe as it was a month ago? Unequivocally, no.”

He explained, “Our baseline leading into the shutdown was not healthy.” The system, he said, was already stretched thin after months of mandatory overtime, uneven hiring, and years of pay stagnation that had left morale at an all-time low. Controllers, he added, were still dealing with the fallout from January’s midair collision near Reagan National Airport, when staffing shortages and outdated technology were thrust into the spotlight. 

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After 10 years in the job, he described a schedule that leaves little room to rest. Six-day workweeks are routine from March through November, with most controllers rotating through a “rattler” schedule: two evening shifts, two early morning shifts, and an overnight. When staffing is low, the sixth day is often added on top, forcing them to come in on what should be a rest day, sometimes for any shift the facility needs covered.

“It’s just not sustainable,” he said. “You finish one shift, go home, maybe see your kids for an hour, try to sleep, and then turn around for a midnight shift.”

When staffing dips, the pressure mounts. “Instead of working an hour and getting a 30-minute break, we’re working two or three hours and getting maybe 20 minutes off,” he said. “You can’t stay 100% working 20 to 25 aircraft at a time for hours straight and expect to maintain safety.”

That exhaustion, he said, is driving absences as controllers run out of patience and money. “Some people are calling in sick because they’re literally going out to drive Uber or pick up side work,” he said. “Others are just burned out. You can only lean on patriotism for so long before reality hits; people have bills to pay.”

Each callout forces others to take on extra shifts. He has logged about 400 hours of overtime this year, which is now typical across many facilities. He said he’s fortunate to have savings and a zero-percent credit-union loan while paychecks are frozen. “Even if you’re OK financially, it’s demoralizing to get a pay stub that shows zeros when you’re working overtime,” he said. “For the newer folks, it’s not just frustrating, it’s survival.”

According to the controller, many newer hires earn between $50,000 and $60,000 per year and have been required to relocate for training or assignments, often to high-cost areas far from home. He said missing even one paycheck can mean missing rent or car payments.

“They absolutely can’t afford it,” he said. “This is all anybody talks about. It’s taking focus away from the mission.”

FAA data show the number of fully certified controllers has declined over the past decade, even as air traffic volumes have climbed. “It feels like an entire generation is going to spend their careers working short-staffed,” he said. 

Controllers in other regions echoed that frustration, saying the flight reductions may sound significant but make little difference in practice.

A controller in the Dallas-Fort Worth area called the cuts “a media stunt to make it look like the problem is being fixed, when it’s not.” He said even with a 10% reduction, the change barely touches the daily workload for controllers managing some of the nation’s busiest airspace.

“A 10% reduction in arrival rates won’t make any real difference,” he said. “At most major airports, we already operate below maximum capacity. Taking Dallas-Fort Worth from 130 arrivals an hour to 117, or Charlotte from 87 to 78, doesn’t change much.”

He explained that major hubs operate on banked schedules that already run at their maximum limits, meaning the reductions won’t ease staffing pressures or prevent delays. “Every day we’re dealing with flow programs and reroutes to cover for low-staffed areas, while working with skeleton crews,” he said.

In Minnesota, a controller who recently quit said the shutdown was “the final push” after months of burnout and frustration over pay and staffing. He had spent nearly six years in air traffic control, first in the military, then in the federal system, before walking away just two weeks ago.

“I quit and served my last day of notice,” he said. “It wasn’t just because of the shutdown, but that was the tipping point.”

He said the agency was already struggling to keep new hires even before paychecks stopped. “Trainees show up under enormous stress,” he said. “They’ve moved across the country, they’re learning one of the hardest jobs in the world, and now they don’t know how they’ll pay their bills.”

The shutdown, he said, pushed many over the edge. “We started seeing more people calling out, taking sick leave, or just giving up,” he said. “A lot of controllers are talking about quitting; some like me already have.”

He said his own decision to leave came from exhaustion and disillusionment. “This job is already stressful,” he said. “Add low staffing, no pay, and leadership that doesn’t seem to care, and it becomes unbearable.”

He warned that the longer the shutdown lasts, the harder it will be for the FAA to recover. “If this keeps up, new hires won’t stick around,” he said. “They’re already behind on staffing, and this just makes it worse.”

FAA and Transportation Department defend flight reductions to maintain ‘highest standards of safety’

Federal officials say the flight reductions are a necessary and proactive measure to protect the integrity of the airspace while thousands of controllers continue working without pay.

Duffy and FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford outlined the order this week, describing it as a “temporary, data-driven step” to “maintain the highest standards of safety in the national airspace system.”

The plan will reduce flight operations by 4% starting Friday, gradually increasing to 10% by Nov. 14 across 40 of the nation’s busiest airports, including Atlanta, Chicago O’Hare, Los Angeles, New York LaGuardia, and Reagan National Airport in Washington. At least 1,000 flights were canceled nationwide on Friday, according to FlightAware. Duffy warned Friday that the percentage could jump to 20% unless the government shutdown ended.

A U.S. Department of Transportation spokesperson told the Washington Examiner the decision was guided entirely by safety metrics, not politics.

“This was a data-driven decision made by non-political safety experts at the FAA who based their decision on the strain our system is currently seeing,” the spokesperson said. “Unprecedented times call for unprecedented actions. We’ll continue to assess the data and adapt as needed.”

Rep. Rick Larsen (D-WA), the top Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said the FAA’s plan to reduce flights by 10% at 40 airports beginning Nov. 7 is “a dramatic and unprecedented step that demands more transparency.” He added, “The FAA must immediately share any safety risk assessment and related data that this decision is predicated on with Congress.”

The agency said the reductions were informed by safety data and confidential reports from both pilots and air traffic controllers, which showed growing fatigue and strain within the system. “We are seeing signs of stress in the system, so we are proactively reducing the number of flights to make sure the American people continue to fly safely,” Bedford said.

During a visit to Reagan National Airport on Friday, Duffy said recent data revealed “a troubling trend,” pointing to an increase in runway incursions, pilot complaints, and instances where aircraft came too close together in flight.

“That data is going in the wrong direction, not in the right direction, which made us make the decision to take additional measures to reduce the pressure in our system,” Duffy said.

The shutdown comes just months after Duffy unveiled his signature plan to “supercharge” the air traffic control workforce and overhaul the FAA’s aging infrastructure. In February, he announced a streamlined hiring process and a 30% increase in starting salaries for academy graduates at the FAA’s training center in Oklahoma City, a move he said would begin reversing more than a decade of workforce decline.

Since then, the agency has reported record recruitment figures, surpassing its fiscal 2025 goal by hiring just over 2,000 new controllers. Still, training those recruits can take years, and the total number of fully certified controllers remains lower than it was a decade ago. “We’re 3,000 controllers short, and we’ve been 3,000 short for over a decade,” Duffy said earlier this year.

The push followed months of scrutiny over safety lapses and near-misses, including the January midair collision near Reagan National Airport that killed 67 people. That disaster prompted the FAA to accelerate modernization projects, including replacing hundreds of radar systems, upgrading software across control centers, and building six new towers, a multibillion-dollar plan Duffy says could be completed in as little as four years if Congress provides funding.

Many controllers fear that even when the shutdown ends, the damage will linger. While federal officials insist the system remains safe, the controllers responsible for keeping it that way say the strain is showing.

 “I mean, this absolutely introduces more risk into the system, without a doubt,” said a controller based in Philadelphia. 

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The controller described an industry held together by human endurance more than institutional support, one that depends on overtime, unpaid labor, and the quiet resolve of those who still show up.

“We’re expected to keep the skies moving no matter what,” the controller said. “But you can only patch so many holes before something slips through.”