Headaches continued for U.S. travelers over the weekend as a combination of bad weather and impacts from the ongoing government shutdown ensnarled many would-be fliers.
Flight delays and cancellations piled up over the three-day holiday period, with flight-tracking service FlightAware showing nearly 30,000 delays in and out of U.S. airports from Sunday of last week through Monday. Here’s the latest on the situation at U.S. airports and what travelers need to know:
How bad have flight delays been?
Delays and cancellations at many airports have grown progressively worse since the U.S. government shut down on October 1. With no end in sight to the political impasse in Washington that brought us here, the shutdown will enter its third week tomorrow.
FlightAware data shows there were 7,928 delays in and out of U.S. airports yesterday, along with 592 cancellations.
Saturday and Sunday were roughly the same, with 5,007 delays and 114 cancellations on Saturday and 7,981 and 271 cancellations on Sunday.
Airlines for America, a trade group representing U.S. airlines, had warned before the weekend that shutdown-related shortages in air traffic controllers could create travel headaches at a number of airports, although the group insisted that flying remains safe, as CNN reported.
Bad weather, including a nor’easter that made its way up the East Coast, contributed to the chaos, causing delays at Northeast airports including New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and Newark International Airport in New Jersey.
Will delays continue this week?
As of early Tuesday morning, FlightAware data showed significantly fewer delays and cancellations for today (499 and 26, respectively), but the number was rising rapidly and only time will tell what the future has in store. (We’ll update this post later today with the most recent numbers.)
Meanwhile, Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill remain deadlocked over key sticking points. Most crucially, Democrats want to extend Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits that are set to expire this year.
According to estimates from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), the loss of the credits would lead to significantly higher healthcare premiums for millions of Americans.