Southern CO flyers feeling the pinch; FAA mandates flight reductions to mitigate staff shortages
Marina Garcia
COLORADO SPRINGS, (Colo.) KRDO – The government shutdown is grounding flights in major airports just before the holidays, following mandates from the Federal Aviation Administration.
Flight Aware’s misery map shows red across the nation, including at the Denver International Airport, where over 80 flights were canceled and over 450 were delayed.
And the misery is spreading to some travelers through the Colorado Springs airport who still depend on larger airports like Denver to get around.
This is usually a time when people plan to visit family for the holiday, but Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says, as we get closer to Thanksgiving, there will be even less air travel.
This comes as a result of the Trump Administration helping to ease the workload of air traffic controllers brought on by staffing shortages.
We spoke to a woman who’s a frequent flier due to her job, and all the uncertainty got her thinking about other options to make sure she made it home.
“I thought about, well, man, if I can’t make it home, it was like a 22-hour drive, I believe, from Oregon back to Colorado. So I thought about driving that,” says Bernadette Florez-Madrid, a traveler.
Bernadette says she did make it to Denver from Oregon; however, United Airlines sent a text saying her flight was canceled to Colorado Springs, forcing her to take a costly taxi back home.
“Having to taxi between Denver to Colorado Springs just to get back to my vehicle. That was like, that was a pretty hefty charge. So that wasn’t the greatest,” says Bernadette Florez-Madrid, a traveler.
Air traffic controllers are also feeling the pinch and will miss their second full paycheck next week.
Now, with the potential reopening of the government, this may impact the trajectory of flight cancellations.