As shutdown drags on, US aviation faces turbulence and turmoil

The lights still blink on control towers across America — but behind those glowing screens, the strain is beginning to show. With the US government shutdown entering its second month, the aviation sector is spiraling into crisis. From air-traffic controllers skipping paychecks to airports running on fumes, the hum of the nation’s skies has taken on an uneasy tremor.

At the White House on Thursday, vice-president J.D. Vance painted a grim picture. Unless the political standoff ends soon, he warned, the nation could face an air-travel “meltdown” within weeks. “It could be a disaster, it really could be,” he said after conferring with airline executives and union leaders. By next month, he cautioned, some controllers could be missing their third paycheck, a breaking point that might ground far more than just planes.

Transportation secretary Sean Duffy, standing beside him, echoed the alarm — but turned his ire toward the opposition. “Democrats must stop holding American families’ travel hostage,” he declared. “Our traffic will be snarled. It will be a disaster in aviation.”

The toll is already visible. Across the country, hundreds of air-traffic controllers have taken second jobs — ferrying food, driving for ride-shares, even tutoring online — in a bid to make ends meet. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), stretched thin by unpaid and overworked staff, has begun issuing ground-delay programmes at major airports.

From Newark to Los Angeles to Washington’s Reagan National, passengers are feeling the strain. Towers operating with skeleton crews have been forced to impose flow restrictions, prompting cascading delays and temporary ground stops.

Industry experts warn that the worst may be yet to come. As November’s travel surge and the holiday season approach, even minor disruptions could snowball into chaos. “If controllers miss multiple pay periods,” Duffy said, “you’re going to have mass issues in the airspace.”

Behind the scenes, the system’s foundation is also eroding. The FAA has halted hiring and training of new controllers — a move that deepens the long-standing staffing crisis. The pipeline of recruits, already slowed by budget woes, has now dried up entirely.

Yet the political deadlock in Washington shows no sign of breaking. Republicans accuse Democrats of insisting on healthcare subsidies for undocumented immigrants — a charge Democrats dismiss as “a lie peddled by the Trump administration.” The opposition, in turn, says it merely seeks to reverse healthcare cuts for American citizens contained in the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” passed earlier this year.

For now, the skies remain open — but precariously so. Each takeoff and landing is a small act of endurance, carried out by weary professionals working without pay, keeping America’s airways aloft even as politics threatens to drag them down.

With IANS inputs