U.S. airlines will be able to resume normal operations starting November 17, after more than a week of government-mandated flight reductions.
The U.S. Transportation Department and Federal Aviation Administration announced late on November 16 that they would lift cuts across 40 major U.S. airports that were imposed during the government shutdown, starting from 6 a.m. November 17, New York time. On November 14, officials earlier eased up on flight reductions, capping them at 3% from 6%.
“Today’s decision to rescind the order reflects the steady decline in staffing concerns across the national airspace system and allows us to return to normal operations,” FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said in the statement.
The cuts first went into effect on November 7 at a rate of 4% and were supposed to slowly increase to 10% by November 14. However, the government froze the rate at 6% on November 12, shortly before President Donald Trump signed legislation to end the longest federal closure in U.S. history.
Bedford and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy have said reducing flight capacity was necessary to ease strain on air traffic controllers, who were working without pay during the shutdown.
Staffing levels have continued to “snap back” into place since the shutdown ended, they said in the statement. The positive trend continued over the weekend, with six staffing triggers on November 14, eight on November 15, and only one staffing trigger on November 16. That’s in contrast to a record high of 81 staffing triggers on November 8, according to the statement.
Even before the order was lifted, data from aviation analytics company Cirium seems to indicate airlines weren’t cutting all of the flights mandated by the government over the weekend.
According to Cirium, just 0.25% of flights were canceled on November 16 at the 40 airports that were included in the FAA’s order.
The termination of the emergency order also lifts restrictions on general aviation operators at some airports, and frees up commercial space launches and reentries.
