More Than 1,000 Flights Cancelled as Airport Chaos Begins: 'People Are Just Fed Up'

Sandra Pleites has been looking forward to visiting her sister for months, trading in the crisp New Jersey weather for a sun-soaked trip with her kids to San Diego.

Once a year, one side of the family hops on a flight and jets out to the other coast to spend some quality time together. Pleites booked an Airbnb for herself, her fiancé and her two children, secured a rental car and was busy planning an itinerary of activities.

But the government shutdown threw her — and thousands of other travelers — a massive curveball this week.

As of Friday morning, more than 1,000 flights had already been canceled, according to Flight Aware, and the situation was set to get much worse.

The Federal Aviation Administration announced Thursday that it planned to cut air traffic by 10% at 40 airports nationwide to maintain travel safety as the government shutdown stretched into its second month.

The shutdown already resulted in staffing shortages and periodical flight delays. But the full flight reductions began Friday and could continue to worsen over the weekend.

Officials urged passengers to check with airlines on the status of their flights and warned that flights could be canceled with little notice.

The situation has left travelers angry and anxious. Some tried to move their travel plans up, hoping to avoid the worst of the fallout from the flight reductions, while others are trying to figure out alternatives in case their flights are canceled.

"It was supposed to be a fun, long weekend visiting my sister, but now I'm not even sure if it's going to happen," Pleites said. "I'm really upset and just frustrated because I was really excited about this trip."

In California, Los Angeles International Airport, Ontario International Airport, San Diego International Airport, Oakland International Airport and San Francisco International Airport will be targeted for cuts.

Nearly 13,000 air traffic controllers have been working without pay for weeks, resulting in high levels of fatigue and stress among staff tasked with keeping the skies safe. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said the flight reductions were the result of concerns that staffing pressures could compromise safety.

"What we're finding is that our air traffic controllers, because of the financial pressures at home, are taking side jobs. They need to put food on the table, gas in the car, pay their bills," Duffy said.

"We do not want to see disruptions at the FAA or here at [the Department of Transportation]. We don't want that. But our No. 1 priority is to make sure when you travel you travel safely."

Press Friday about the impacts, Duffy told CBS Friday: "If people want to question us, I would throw it back at them: Open up the government. "We have to take unprecedented action because we are in an unprecedented situation with the shutdown."

The decision to cut flights intensified the tension between Republicans and Democrats at the nation's capital. Washington Rep. Rick Larsen, the top Democrat on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, questioned whether safety was the key motivation in the decision to cut flights, calling it an "unprecedented step that demands more transparency."

The cuts could affect about 1,800 flights and 268,000 passengers in the U.S. a day, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. About 72 flights a day could be cut at LAX, affecting 12,371 passengers. An additional 105 flights could be canceled at the four other California airports targeted for reductions, Cirium estimated.

For travelers, uncertainty over whether their flights will be affected has left them in limbo.

There was no way Kathryn McMiller of Seal Beach was going to risk being stranded because of flight cancellations, so she opted to postpone her trip this month to visit her brother and sister-in-law in Orlando until January.

It wasn't so much getting there that she was concerned about, the 69-year-old said, but the potential that her trip home might be delayed because of the lingering shutdown.

She decided to cancel her Southwest flight Tuesday, days before the news of the looming flight reductions.

"I absolutely have to be back on Dec. 3 and I'm concerned this government shutdown is going to go really long," McMiller said. "I could just imagine being stuck with all these people and having to try to track down a hotel. It's not worth it."

Leslie Nash of Long Beach waited as long as she could before calling off her 60th-birthday trip to Hawaii with her sisters; she was forced to cancel Thursday or risk losing refunds for her hotel room and rental car.

"It's a total first-world problem on my end," she said. "I can always reschedule, but it just sucks."

Faced with the government shutdown, the immigration raids in Southern California, the general polarization of American politics and now the travel setbacks, "people are just fed up," Nash said. "Can we have any joy?"

At LAX on Thursday, the terminals that house Delta and American airlines were bustling as usual, with travelers grateful to be jetting off before the reductions hit.

"We're getting out of Dodge before it gets a lot worse," Dale Eckerman, 85, said as he sat with his wife, Paula Carroll, near the American Airlines check-in.

Eckerman and Carroll, 75, benefited from good, old-fashioned luck as they picked the dates and departure times for their annual trip to visit their son in Los Angeles. Although some flights into Boston were experiencing minor delays Thursday, their flight was proceeding as scheduled.

Had they decided to travel back to Cape Cod — their home for the last 15 years — on Friday, their travel experience might have looked different, Carroll said.

"We got lucky," Carroll said. "We didn't have to change our plans."

Stephanie Sanchez, 28, and her husband, Dan, were getting ready to head to security after arriving at LAX on Thursday morning excited to start their vacation, a rare couple's trip to Miami without their 3- and 6-year-old daughters.

They didn't expect any delays Thursday, but their flight home Monday might be a different story, they said.

American Airlines sent them an email alerting them of the FAA directive to reduce flight schedules, but the airline noted that it expected "the vast majority of our customers' travel will be unaffected."

Customers whose flights are canceled will be able to change their flight or request a refund without any penalty, according to the airline. United also announced any customer traveling during the flight reduction is eligible for a refund if they decide not to fly, even if their flight isn't affected.

"Hopefully we're good now, and we'll see how it is on the way back," Stephanie Sanchez said. "Fingers crossed."

Times staff writer Jenny Jarvie contributed to this report

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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