U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy used dramatic language to warn about the fragile state of air transportation in the United States during a Nov. 4 press conference. Duffy warned of “mass chaos” and added, “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 the air traffic controllers…. But with the shutdown, it would be dishonest to say that more risk is not injected into the system. There is more risk in the system.”
Duffy continued, “I’ll tell you, yes, the system is safe, and if it wasn’t we would shut it down. We delay flights, we … tell airlines to cancel flights if we don’t have enough controllers to effectively and safely manage our skies…. Make no mistake, the longer this goes on, every day these hardworking Americans have bills they have to pay, they’re being forced to make decisions and choices. Do they go to work as an air traffic controller, or do they have to find a different job to get resources, money, to put food on their table, to put gas in their car?”
