With the record-long government shutdown now in the history books and more air traffic controllers coming to work, the Department of Transportation has decided to freeze the level of flight cuts imposed on US carriers at 6% — rather than continuing a schedule that would have had cuts rising to 10% by week’s end. After being hammered by customer service headaches, lost revenue from refunded tickets and higher costs from idling jet engines on clogged taxiways, airlines are now urging reluctant would-be travelers to jump back into action.
Even if the 6% mandate is retracted, it will take airlines a few days to resume normal operations. “There will be residual effects for days,” trade group Airlines for America told the Wall Street Journal. That time will be needed to reposition aircraft and crews. However, another effect may be longer-lasting: As the shutdown continued, upwards of a dozen or more controllers were retiring on any given day.
As the shutdown ground onward toward its record 43-day duration, absenteeism among air traffic controllers put increasing strain on the nation’s air system, prompting the extraordinary government-mandated reductions of flights at 40 of America’s busiest airports. Having gone without pay for weeks, many controllers were said to have been calling in sick so they could pursue side-work to keep up with their expenses. After the flight cancellation mandate kicked in, things grew particularly grim at certain airports last weekend, such as the long-suffering Newark:
lol at this lineup of takeoffs waiting to leave Newark, which is currently experiencing average delays of…. 3 hours and 45 minutes.
Even if your flight isn’t cancelled, good luck getting to your destination on time. pic.twitter.com/N4X9NjlITB
— Zach Griff (@_ZachGriff) November 9, 2025
Money will soon be landing in controllers’ bank accounts. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said controllers will receive 70% of their back pay within 48 hours of the shutdown’s Wednesday-night ending, and the balance within a week. After a stressful weekend that had some airline industry followers worrying about a meltdown of cascading cancellations and delays, airline performance improved markedly on Tuesday and Wednesday as controller attendance rose. On Saturday, the FAA reported 81 “staffing triggers” — shortfalls at sites that prompt changes in operations to maintain safety. By Wednesday, there were only four such triggers.
Woohoo!
– Stellar performance today (4.1% cancellations / 11% disruptions)
– As we hoped, FAA mandate has been reduced to 6%
– So we avoided a meltdown last weekend and avoided provoking one this weekend (at 10%)
– And ATC gets paid!
A++. Now let’s fix ATC pay for good. 🇺🇸
— Flighty (@Flighty) November 13, 2025
With that, the country seems to have pulled back from a precipice that threatened to make the upcoming Thanksgiving travel-week a cancellation-and-delay disaster of epic proportions. After last week ordering the commercial flight-cuts that started at 2% and were scheduled to hit 6% at the end of this week, Duffy warned that reductions could soar to 20%.On Monday, the FAA barred most private aviation travel at a dozen major US airports. Soon after those reports emerged, President Trump took to social media to urge controllers to report for duty. Wielding both a carrot and a stick, Trump said he would recommend a $10,000 bonus for any controller who “didn’t take any time off for the ‘Democrat Shutdown Hoax’,” while threatening that controllers who didn’t get back to work could have their pay “docked.”
After two weeks of anxiety-raising publicity about air travel, US carriers are now trying to convince wary customers to buy tickets. “You can now feel confident in booking your travel, knowing that, even with the FAA reductions still in place, our operation is stabilizing as we move to resuming normal operations,” Southwest Airlines posted in message on its mobile app.
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