America's Talking - Govt shutdown crippling U.S. airports; thousands of flights delayed, cancelled

Episode Date: November 9, 2025

(The Center Square) – As the government shutdown drags into its 38th day and forced flight reductions begin taking effect, the number of daily flight cancellations Americans are experiencing has skyrocketed. By noon Friday, airlines had slashed 850 flights within, into, or out of the United States – quadruple the number of cancellations made the previous day. The numbers will only increase over the coming days as 40 major U.S. airports implement the Federal Aviation Administration’s order to reduce flight volume by 10%, a necessary safety measure as staffing shortages become more severe.Support this podcast: https://secure.anedot.com/franklin-news-foundation/ce052532-b1e4-41c4-945c-d7ce2f52c38a?source_code=xxxxxx Read more: https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_e865f9aa-b10a-472d-85bf-4fd9eac4a92b.html Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings and welcome to America's Talking, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulip, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. We are approaching the 40th day of the federal government shutdown are already the longest in U.S. history, and more and more taxpayers are starting to feel the impact. With air traffic controllers and transportation security administration officers going unpaid for more than a month, the Federal Aviation Administration said this week it is reducing air traffic by 10% at the country's 40 largest airports ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday. Joining me to discuss this is the Center Square's congressional reporter, Terez Boudreau. Tres, a new poll shows that nearly half of Americans have felt some impact from the shutdown.

And there still seems like there's no end in sight. Tell us the latest. Well, it's not surprising that roughly half of felt something due to the shutdown because, like you said, it is the longest of any appropriations lapse we have had in American history is Friday morning right now, and that marks the 38th day of the shutdown. The longest you've ever had before this is 35 days. So you've had a lot of government services closed for all that time, the snap funding. That's a big crisis right now because there's I think half the funding available for SNAP, and that was only after the administration dipped into emergency funds.

So the 42 million people on food stamps are, you can only have about half the amount for the month they normally would have. And then, as you were saying, the latest thing is these smags in air travel. So because the government shut down, air traffic controllers, other workers for the federal aviation administration, they haven't been paid this entire time. So yesterday actually air traffic controllers missed their second full paycheck but they still have rent or mortgages to pay they still have families to support and they haven't even been able to go out and look for odd jobs like other federal workers who aren't considered essential who are just furloughed without pay but they've had to go into work day and day out without pay so a lot

of them now have just reached a breaking point and have had to call in sick and again, go do some odd jobs, drive for Uber, you know, things like that, Secretary John Duffy was saying. And so we're seeing these delays and these cancellations because there's simply less staffing at airports. And so they can't have the same volume that they have been. And so today actually is the day where 40 major U.S. airports are going to start specifically intentionally cutting back the number of flights by 10% that they're that they're doing because they just you know Secretary Duffer was saying we have to keep the airspace is safe and so that's going to impact I mean we've already seen hundreds and thousands even of delays and sometimes hundreds of

cancellations for flights going into out of or within the US and with this mandatory cutback we're going to be seeing so, so many more. So there's, again, I'm not surprised that people are feeling this because this is impacting people all across the country. And there's no scheduled vote today in the Senate. Of course, just as a quick rehash, the House passed, the U.S. House in September passed a continuing resolution to keep the government funded at past levels. no new major like political issues that were put in there. It's just keeping the government funded at past levels. The Senate has not been able to pass it.

Democrats in the Senate are holding out, wanting to extend Obamacare tax subsidies going forward. Republicans in the Senate are saying, we'll do that next. Let's get this government funded. but now with the bill that the House passed only extended, was meant to extend government funding into mid to late November. So the House is going to have to come back, really, and get back to work and pass a new either continuing resolution or these 12 appropriations bills. It's just, I don't see an end game here.

Yeah, I mean, it is looking pretty bad. I know House Speaker Mike Johnson wanted to, he hasn't had the House in session this entire time. They have lawmakers, a lot of Lubbics have been on the hill and doing press conferences, including Johnson himself. But he hasn't called the House back into session because he wanted it to be clear. Look, we've done our job. You know, he said this. We've done our job. We passed this clean continuing resolution. We're not, you know, there's no poison pills we can take out of this. You know, this is a nonpartisan bill. So just vote for it. And that was Republican strategy in the beginning, because again, no one expected it to go on this long.

But at this point, the original time frame of that continuing resolution, of that CR that would keep government funding on cruise control, essentially, that time frame is just narrowed considerably because, you know, this is what week six, week five of the shutdown. So the remaining time left, even if it passed today, would not be enough time for lawmakers to finish the normal appropriations process like they wanted to. So yes, it's looking highly likely that, if not inevitable, that the House is going to have to come back so that they can either pass a new CR that the Senate drafts or that or so that they can draft a CR, you know, that the Senate passes. Essentially, they're going to have to come back to put a stamp of

approval on something to get it to the president. But again, right now, there are discussions that there are reports that there are discussions going on behind closed doors that some rank and file members are trying to reach some kind of compromise with the Obamacare premium tax credits that are going to expire. That's the big thing that Democrats have been holding out for. But so I know there is some, some hope in different, there are some people expressing, expressing, expressing, but there's really nothing concrete yet. You know, it's, it's, you got to wonder, what's going to be the breaking point, I guess, for, for, for lawmakers. At this point, I think Democrats have dug themselves in so deep that they can't fold now, essentially, is, is, is, the thinking. Like we have to get some kind of concessions. We can't just say, okay, you know, we've held out since October 1st and, you know, now we're just going to give in. I think that's, that would be a very distasteful option for them. They, you know, said that themselves. We're not just going to back down right now. So it's, again, it, right now is a lot of

backdoor discussions going on. There's not a whole thing's, a whole lot of things we can point to and say, look, this is the off ramp. But, you know, hope. Hopefully they do because this is impacting a lot of people. And it's, it's secretary, Secretary Duffy was saying that, you know, this is just going to look worse and worse as the holiday rush comes on, you know, and so many, you know, millions and millions of people need to get home or travel someplace for Thanksgiving. And, I mean, you know, hopefully not. We can hope that after, you know, it doesn't reach that long. But even after that, they need. to act now, essentially, you know, is that there's unions, there's organizations, everyone's

calling for Congress to act now. So we'll have to see whether or not they do that. Drez, thank you for joining us today. Listeners can keep up with this ongoing governmental shutdown story at the center square.com.