WASHINGTON — Airlines will fly the friendly skies without obvious changes during the federal government shutdown because air-traffic controllers at the Federal Aviation Administration and Transportation Security Administration checkpoint officers are classified essential workers.
But TSA administrator David Pekoske said a shutdown creates anxiety and the planning takes attention away from security screening.
“All checkpoints will remain open,” Pekoske said.
But he said there would be an impact because acquisition officials and other support functions would stop going to work. “What a shutdown does is you spend a lot of time planning and recovering from a shutdown,” Pekoske said. “That’s in my view a loss of time. We’re busy all the time.”
