Friday, January 25, 2019
It is an interlocking system
The commercial air traffic system is an amazing juggling act of people and planes. The on time occurence of the flight you are taking relys on the on time arrival of that plane earlier from another location. If that plane does not arrive on time it won't be ready on time and the crew may not get the mandated rest they deserve. And all of the comings and goings are orchestrated by the air traffic control system, a system now under increasing strain because of the Trump Shutdown. And today the first major crack inthe system occured when the 3rd busiest airport in the country, La Guardia in New York, shutdown bcause of lack of traffic controllers.
Significant flight delays were rippling across the Northeast on Friday because of a shortage of air traffic controllers as a result of the government shutdown, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.So far the effects have been like a bad storm on the traffic patterns but with controllers taking on second jobs to make ends meet outside of their regular 10 shifts, you have to wonder how alert that person guiding your plane in the dance of takeoffs and landings really is.
The delays were cascading along the Eastern Seaboard, reaching as far north as Boston. But La Guardia was the only airport that had been closed off to departing flights from other cities because it was so crowded with planes taking off and landing on a weekday morning. Delays on flights into La Guardia were averaging almost an hour and a half, the F.A.A. said.
The delays seemed to be easing late Friday morning. But the disruption was significant and could ratchet up the pressure on political leaders because it showed how the shutdown can reverberate far beyond government workers and affect a large number of people.
The F.A.A. said it was slowing traffic in and out of the airports because of staffing problems at two of its air-traffic control facilities on the East Coast, one near Washington and one in Jacksonville, Fla. Those facilities manage air traffic at high altitudes.
The agency said there had been a slight increase in the number of controllers calling in sick at those facilities on Friday morning.
The control towers at the airports that serve New York City and the central air-traffic control facility on Long Island that monitors those airports were fully staffed, said a person who had been briefed on the situation.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
Post a Comment