The Department of Transportation might be forced to shut down the airspace in certain parts of the country if the government shutdown continues into next week.
“You will see mass flight delays. You’ll see mass cancelations, 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.”
Maybe y’all shouldn’t have let DOGE chainsaw the FAA, then.
Not to take any rightful criticism off of DOGE, but ATCs just have never properly recovered from Reagan getting pissy, and are still just not properly equipped.
This is a half truth. There are a lot of technologies from the 60’s to 80’s still in use as backups. At least for the enroute portion these are essentially backups for backups to ensure planes do not hit each other. Tech in towers is generally older overall since it’s much more costly to implement at every airport. Ultimately all this does is eat into the budget which could be used to hire more or pay better, but either likely go to other critical services anyway. Manpower is by far the biggest issue for controllers.
What does this even mean? How do you “close certain parts of the airspace”?
Do you invoke NORAD to prevent airplanes from flying into certain portions of US air space? Do you NOTAM certain airspace as class G? Do you maintain the class so VFR can’t fly through and have IFR avoid it? Do you put a TFR across the airspace?
Come on, dude. Be specific. FAA is DOT. You have the means to find someone who knows the correct words.
It means the airports serving the area are shut down due to lack of ATC staff. You don’t need to get into military no fly zones. All commercial traffic to those areas will go away by itself.
That doesn’t mean anything. You can land at an airport without ATC. You can fly VFR. It’s unusual for ATP because, well, it severely limits when and where you can fly. Doesn’t mean it’s impossible. And if it’s a center and not an individual airport tower, you can probably fly IFR and cancel IFR when you get close to the airport and land under VFR.
You’ll still need fire trucks and such, but that shouldn’t be federal to my knowledge.
Big commercial airlines are not going to do that. Sure, general aviation can. That doesn’t matter for the parts of the system that affect the stock market.
Large commercial airlines already fly to untowered airports. It’s not incredibly common, but it does happen.
If as others have said, it massively reduces the number of flights that can be handled at once; you almost certainly won’t see parallel landings at an uncontrolled airport, for example. But it wouldn’t completely stop air travel.
There was a cargo plane (747? 737?) that flew VFR. It’s not impossible but would greatly reduce the rate of arrivals/departures.
It’s kind of unprecedented at where we are headed. I wouldn’t expect them to do this normally, but desperate times may lead to desperate measures. We’ll see (even though I don’t think air travel is a need)
If the airlines industry crashes though, our economy is royally fucked though so
Doesn’t feel like a threat. Feels like a scare tactic to people who don’t know enough about how flying works.
There is no way in hell he gets away with physically shutting out other planes. NORAD is US + Canada. Canada is extremely unlikely to acquiesce, so he’ll have to use unpaid American military. Because ICE is not building fast enough (ICE is his excuse to say, “see? I’m not using military on civilians!”), he relies on the military to keep a hold on the populace. If they become too disgruntled, he loses or at least greatly impedes his progress towards his desired control of the entire US government.
If he declares that towered airports are now class G, then airplanes are still able to land but at a greatly reduced rate
If he makes them into TFR’s, then he’ll add time for planes to go around them.
Maybe y’all shouldn’t have let DOGE chainsaw the FAA, then.
Not to take any rightful criticism off of DOGE, but ATCs just have never properly recovered from Reagan getting pissy, and are still just not properly equipped.
It turns out that it takes more than 3 decades to recover from a radical right presidential administration.
It sucks that we’re gonna have to do it again now
We also have tooling from the 60s if I’m remembering right. We could have spent money on airplanes not crashing at really any time.
This is a half truth. There are a lot of technologies from the 60’s to 80’s still in use as backups. At least for the enroute portion these are essentially backups for backups to ensure planes do not hit each other. Tech in towers is generally older overall since it’s much more costly to implement at every airport. Ultimately all this does is eat into the budget which could be used to hire more or pay better, but either likely go to other critical services anyway. Manpower is by far the biggest issue for controllers.
The answer is obviously force them to work without pay or face jail, right?
What does this even mean? How do you “close certain parts of the airspace”?
Do you invoke NORAD to prevent airplanes from flying into certain portions of US air space? Do you NOTAM certain airspace as class G? Do you maintain the class so VFR can’t fly through and have IFR avoid it? Do you put a TFR across the airspace?
Come on, dude. Be specific. FAA is DOT. You have the means to find someone who knows the correct words.
It means the airports serving the area are shut down due to lack of ATC staff. You don’t need to get into military no fly zones. All commercial traffic to those areas will go away by itself.
That doesn’t mean anything. You can land at an airport without ATC. You can fly VFR. It’s unusual for ATP because, well, it severely limits when and where you can fly. Doesn’t mean it’s impossible. And if it’s a center and not an individual airport tower, you can probably fly IFR and cancel IFR when you get close to the airport and land under VFR.
You’ll still need fire trucks and such, but that shouldn’t be federal to my knowledge.
Big commercial airlines are not going to do that. Sure, general aviation can. That doesn’t matter for the parts of the system that affect the stock market.
Large commercial airlines already fly to untowered airports. It’s not incredibly common, but it does happen.
If as others have said, it massively reduces the number of flights that can be handled at once; you almost certainly won’t see parallel landings at an uncontrolled airport, for example. But it wouldn’t completely stop air travel.
Right, the scale is what matters here.
There was a cargo plane (747? 737?) that flew VFR. It’s not impossible but would greatly reduce the rate of arrivals/departures.
It’s kind of unprecedented at where we are headed. I wouldn’t expect them to do this normally, but desperate times may lead to desperate measures. We’ll see (even though I don’t think air travel is a need)
If the airlines industry crashes though, our economy is royally fucked though so
The economy is 5 companies in an AI trenchcoat. It’s already fucked.
Everyone is starving, inflation is terrible.
Trump sits at the resolute desk. He types into his computer “ChatGPT, is the economy good?”
“Yes” it replies
…… and SCENE
Because it’s a threat, not a safety measure
This is yet another loud chest beating to signal Republican incompetence
Doesn’t feel like a threat. Feels like a scare tactic to people who don’t know enough about how flying works.
There is no way in hell he gets away with physically shutting out other planes. NORAD is US + Canada. Canada is extremely unlikely to acquiesce, so he’ll have to use unpaid American military. Because ICE is not building fast enough (ICE is his excuse to say, “see? I’m not using military on civilians!”), he relies on the military to keep a hold on the populace. If they become too disgruntled, he loses or at least greatly impedes his progress towards his desired control of the entire US government.
If he declares that towered airports are now class G, then airplanes are still able to land but at a greatly reduced rate
If he makes them into TFR’s, then he’ll add time for planes to go around them.
His “threat” feels completely toothless.