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DCA is on the list of 40 airports that saw reductions in flights by the Trump administration.
ARLINGTON, Va. — On the first day of the U.S. Transportation Departments reductions in flights at 40 airports across the country, Reagan National Airport (DCA) was hit hard with significant delays and cancellations prompted by, “air traffic reductions.”
Airport officials urged passengers to closely monitor their flight status on Friday afternoon as the interruptions continued growing throughout the evening.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a a four-hour ground delay for outgoing flights due to staffing shortages. Incoming flights were also experiencing delays as officials limited the number of arrivals to 24 every hour.
Before 7 p.m. the tracker FlightAware indicated that DCA had cancelled more than 155 flights on Friday. The same tracker showed that the day prior there had been 39 cancellations total, while on Tuesday there had been 41.
Airlines across the country were forced to cancel hundreds of flights to comply with the FAA’s order to reduce service by 10 percent over safety concerns prompted by the government shutdown.
American Airlines cancelled more flights than any other company. They cut 220 flights on Friday which according to American is about 4 percent of all their flights.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told reporters at DCA on Friday that they are easing into the 10 percent goal. “We had talked about ten percent, as I reviewed that with the safety team at the FAA, they said the safest way to do this is to get to ten percent. To do a step approach, we are doing four percent, four days later we do two, tow days later we do another two, and then two days after that we are at 10 percent. They thought, the safety team and the administrator, that was the best way to do this and the safest way to do this.”
Duffy urged congress to reopen the federal government, but told reporters that a return to normalcy for air traffic controllers will also be gradual.
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