Normal flight operations can resume after the Democrat government shutdown – right in time for Thanksgiving travels – Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced late Sunday.
Duffy reposted a report from Bloomberg, indicating airlines could resume their normal operations beginning Monday in the aftermath of the Democrat government shutdown, which ended up being the longest in U.S. history.
“The @FAANews has determined that normal flight operations can resume after multiple days of positive staffing with air traffic controllers in our towers,” Duffy said.
“Now we can refocus our efforts on hiring and building the state-of-the-art air traffic control system the American people deserve,” he added.
His update follows remarks made last week, deeming Thursday the “one of the best days” U.S. airspace has had in a while.
“We’re reviewing the data provided and are working hard to return the airspace back to normal. You can thank the six House Democrats for opening up the government!” Duffy said.
The updates follow President Donald Trump signing a bill last week, formally reopening the government after the Democrats’ 43-day shutdown.
“For the past 43 days, Democrats in Congress shut down the government of the United States in an attempt to extort American taxpayers for hundreds of billions of dollars for illegal aliens and people that came into our country illegally,” Trump said at the time, as Democrats demanded a partisan wish list including $1.5 trillion in new spending.
If a dew Democrats had not decided to join Republicans on a clean continuing resolution (CR), things were about to get a lot worse for travelers, right before the holidays. During an event with Breitbart News on November 7, Duffy warned that flight numbers would continue to be reduced for safety purposes, as they were even shorter on air traffic controllers.
“And what that has done is put a lot of pressure on the air traffic control system, and you’ve seen that play out over the course of the month with more delays and more cancellations,” Duffy said.
“We always try to manage the risk. Nothing is ever fully safe. A car is not safe. Walking down the street is not fully. There’s risk in everything we do. I’m trying to minimize the risk through this government shutdown and bring us to a matrix that matches what we had before the shutdown,” he added.
For greater perspective, the flight reduction was expected to scale up to ten percent.
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