Two of Southern California’s busiest airports were experiencing average flight delays of at least an hour Sunday amid air traffic control staffing shortages due to the federal government shutdown.
The advisories from the FAA’s Air Traffic Control System Command Center said the delays were expected to persist through Sunday night.
The issue was related to “staffing,” the advisories said. For San Diego, the advisory specified an issue with “tower staffing.”
Delays were expected to increase to nearly 1½ hours for flights heading to LAX between 8 and 10 p.m. At San Diego International Airport, delays were expected to worsen to nearly 1 hour and 20 minutes between 9 and 10 p.m.
The only other airport nationwide with a ground delay advisory was in New Jersey, where the situation was even worse. Departures to Newark Liberty International Airport were delayed by an average of more than 3½ hours, an advisory said. From 7 to 8 p.m. Eastern time, average delays of 4½ hours were expected.
Since the federal government shut down on Oct. 1, the FAA has warned of disruption at airports due to staff shortages.
Air traffic controllers are required to work unpaid when the federal government shuts down and do not obtain retroactive pay until Congress comes to an agreement on a budget.
Airports across the nation have experienced staff shortages at their air traffic control towers since the shutdown began.
Times staff writer Stacy Perman contributed to this report.
A 35-year veteran controller who worked at several major U.S. facilities and airport towers talked with WTOP about the challenges faced in the procession, including the government shutdown.
Among the government employees who are required to show up to work, and for now are not getting paid, are air traffic controllers.
There are more than 14,000 air traffic controllers who work for the Federal Aviation Administration. It’s work that is stressful and can be full of high-anxiety to begin with, and a shutdown and potential for massive job cuts compound the pressures of the job.
A recently retired, 35-year veteran controller who worked at several major U.S. facilities and airport towers told WTOP, “The air traffic profession is a stressful situation no matter what’s going on in the political sphere.”
It’s not the first time some controllers have expressed feeling that their jobs were being used as part of a game or tug-of-war between political parties. The former controllers’ union, PATCO, held a brief strike in 1981 during former President Ronald Reagan’s administration, protesting wages and long work hours. Thousands of those striking workers were fired.
“Sometimes the profession is used as political pawns between the different parties, and it shouldn’t be that way. But funding for the Federal Aviation Administration is discretionary rather than mandatory and many don’t know that,” said the veteran controller, who WTOP agreed to keep anonymous.
Already, there have been staffing issues at several U.S. airports where control towers have gone understaffed, such as in Burbank, California, and Nashville, Tennessee.
There’s been a growing amount of general flight delays and cancellations, including at Reagan National Airport. Those numbers continue to grow by the day as the number of shutdown days increase.
“Safety is No. 1, paramount, in every controller’s mind,” the veteran controller said. “They are a highly-skilled, technical workforce that they’re able to mostly put their problems aside and do the job safely and efficiently day in and day out.”
During the shutdown period, there hasn’t been any documented airline or airport incidents relating to a lack of safety reported by airlines or government agencies.
In the case where the control tower at Burbank Airport was not staffed, operations and airport traffic were handled by San Diego controllers, CNN reported.
WTOP was told by the veteran controller that hearing about an empty tower is disconcerting, however, takeoff and arrival routes and sequences operate much like vehicles lining up to exit and reenter a major highway.
“You still need great communication between pilots and the controllers, but it’s a manageable situation,” the veteran controller said.
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Public school districts are having trouble hiring bus drivers again this year, at a time when the new school year has just begun or will soon be underway.
In cities like Chicago, Louisville and Tampa, where the school year starts in August, district officials have sent letters to parents asking them to drive their students to class or warning them that the first few weeks of class might be difficult because of a driver shortage.
Districts in Colorado, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania are also reporting driver shortages, according to CBS News local reports. The busing problems that district’s face today are a continuation of the the national driver shortage that began soon after the nation began emerging from the coronavirus pandemic.
Kentucky’s largest district — Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville — has less than 600 drivers now and has been losing hundreds of drivers for different reasons.
“We had more than 900 as recently as a few years ago before COVID but have been losing them ever since, similar to other large districts across the country,” Mark Hebert, a district spokesman, told CBS MoneyWatch.
Meanwhile, the Hillsborough County Public Schools in Tampa has about 200 bus driver vacancies and is “still actively hiring,” HCPS spokesperson Jennifer Holton told CBS MoneyWatch. The district launched a marketing campaign over the summer, aiming to help drum up interest in bus driving she said.
In the meantime, the district’s current 634 drivers are working double runs to make up for the total 837 bus routes across the county.
“There is no specific reason why it has been difficult to recruit drivers,” Holton said. “We know school districts across the nation are dealing with a shortage, so it is not specific to one area of the country.”
$21 an hour
The driver shortage in Albemarle County Public Schools in Charlottesville, Virginia is in part due to an extra 3,000 students requesting bus transportation for this upcoming year.
“Fully staffed, we need about 160 bus drivers and we currently are short by about 12,” Phil Giaramita, a district spokesman, told CBS MoneyWatch. “This means 12 routes are open, with no driver assigned. Students who live on these routes have been placed on a waiting list until new drivers can be hired or we can reconfigure bus routes.”
Giaramita said the district’s driver shortage started during the pandemic but has continued, even though officials have raised driver salaries to roughly $21 an hour. Despite that move, it’s tough to hire drivers because most of them are opting for higher-paying jobs with better benefits, he added.
“To give you an idea of how competitive the market is, we recently lost a driver to a private business that gave the driver, as an incentive, a rent-free home,” he said. “Hard to compete with that but an idea of just how intense the competition is for anyone with a commercial driver’s license.”
Limiting bus services
Chicago Public Schools has about 681 bus drivers on staff but still need another 1,300 — ideally before the first day begins on August 21, CBS News Chicago reported. Drivers there make between $20 and $25 an hour. Without the extra help, Chicago district officials said they will be forced to limit bus services to students with diverse learning needs, students in temporary living situations and general education students who attend the same school as a diverse learner or sibling.
Being a school bus driver is not a viable option for people looking for full-time work, since most bus driving positions entail 25 to 35 hours a week. Finding qualified works is another challenge, as all states require drivers to have a commercial drivers license (CDL) to operate a bus.
In Pennsylvania, Tim Krise, president of Krise Transportation which provides bus services for 26 school districts across the state, said another challenge is finding people who work well with children.
“It’s the first thing they see every day, the first person, and we want them to have a positive experience when they ride the bus to and from school,” he told CBS News over Zoom.
Khristopher J. Brooks is a reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering business, consumer and financial stories that range from economic inequality and housing issues to bankruptcies and the business of sports.
