All fun and games until ...
by Tom Sullivan
Planes line up for takeoff at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Photo by Magnolia677 via Wikimedia Commons.
A tweet yesterday by writer Anne Lamott highlights one of the risks posed by the prolonged government shutdown:
It is not idle speculation.
Small-government conservatives may fantasize that if "big" government shuts down, no one will notice. Or they see President Donald Trump's partial shutdown over border-wall funding as a golden opportunity to smoke out the Resistance and, disaster-capitalism-like, to wring waste out of the system and create a smaller, more efficient bureaucracy. Until a plane goes down.
Shutdown-related short-staffing in the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) may not have allowed a man to carry a gun onto a flight to Tokyo earlier this month. TSA told reporters two inspectors at Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport had not followed proper procedures and were fired. The checkpoint was fully staffed. Other airports report closed lanes and longer lines resulting from the shutdown.
But maintenance is being deferred. The Federal Aviation Administration is calling 2,200 aviation safety inspectors and engineers back to work and hopes to have them in place by January 18:
“We are recalling inspectors and engineers to perform duties to ensure continuous operational safety of the entire national airspace,” an FAA spokesperson said. “We proactively conduct risk assessment, and we have determined that after three weeks it is appropriate to recall inspectors and engineers.”
Appropriate, indeed.
Trish Gilbert, executive vice president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, told CNN on Wednesday, "I would say it is less safe today than it was a month ago. Absolutely."
Gilbert explained, “We do not have the professionals on the job. We are working with bare-bones crews. We have controllers there, doing what they do very, very well. But how long can you expect them to do it without all of the systems behind them to keep the system safe and planes in the air?”
"This is a horrible game of chicken that we’re in the middle of,” said Gilbert.
Aubrey Farrar, 30, is the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) union representative at Washington's Reagan National Airport. With the partial government shutdown approaching a month in duration, federal workers such as Farrar are still on the job working without pay. Farrar supports a 12-month-old baby and is putting his wife through medical school.
Looking out the windows of the control tower, Farrar told the CBC, "What you see happening across the river, that's like they're messing with the people you know and love."
Meanwhile, the FAA is already making plans for increased flight restrictions around the capitol during the president's State of the Union Address. But the January 29 date is uncertain now that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has advised the president that if the shutdown is still in effect, they should discuss another date. The U.S. Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security could be short staffed due to furloughs, dontcha know:
Sadly, given the security concerns and unless government re-opens this week, I suggest that we work together to determine another suitable date after government has re-opened for this address or for you to consider delivering your State of the Union address in writing to the Congress on January 29th.
Or Donald Trump could give it from the Oval Office reading coldly for an hour from a teleprompter.
But he wouldn't have to worry there are not enough air traffic controllers to police the temporary flight restrictions.
