Although the federal shutdown may end sometime this week, operations at airports around the country — including Santa Barbara Airport (SBA) — will feel the effect of the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) continuing edict to reduce operations by 6 percent on Tuesday, November 11, and 10 percent by Friday. Sean Duffy, Transportation Secretary with oversight of the FAA, said the reduction in flights was necessary until staffing levels at air traffic towers stabilized.
Air traffic controllers in those towers have missed two paychecks so far in this six-week shutdown. A long-standing shortage of controllers, exacerbated by a suspension of training and hiring during the pandemic, has led to about 3,000 fewer controllers than are needed at major airports across the country, Duffy said in May. Stress and the need to take a second job are two reasons given for why some controllers are not showing up during the current federal shutdown. During the 35-day shutdown in 2019, it took more than two months for controllers to receive their backpay, said Nick Daniels, who heads the National Air Traffic Controllers Association union.
At Santa Barbara Airport, Airport Director Chris Hastert explained that cancellations haven’t always been due to the FAA directive; severe fog along the coast, for instance, cancelled some flights over the weekend. However, as of the Indy‘s press deadline on Tuesday, the domino effect of cancellations at major airports have led to six flights known to have been cancelled at SBA due to the FAA’s flight reductions so far. “That means we are experiencing approximately a 9 percent reduction locally at SBA,” said Hastert.
Nationwide, nearly 8,000 flights have been cancelled since the FAA required reductions of 4 percent starting Friday, November 7, the Associated Press reported. Destinations such as Phoenix, San Diego, New York, and Houston were among the cities expected to be most affected by control tower staffing issues.
The loss of the usual passenger flow would affect airport revenue, Hastert indicated, though official information was trickling in and revenue information was generally collected monthly. He stated that the airport faced a couple hundred dollars of loss per flight, and also revenue from passenger services such as rental cars, parking, the restaurant, gift shop, and so on.
“The largest impact, which is even more difficult to quantify, is the impact to the entire region as passenger confidence goes down,” Hastert said. “Some passengers will elect to cancel their trip in advance for fear of travel issues, others may not book a vacation to our area that was planned for the same reason. This could greatly affect our local economy, especially as it relates to tourism.”
An estimate by the Airports Council International – North America found that on a national level, a one percent reduction in airline capacity could lead to as much as $32.7 million reduction in economic output at airports each day, Hastert added.
“I’m hopeful the with less than 10 percent reduction in flights locally, that the impact is minimal,” the airport director said. “However, that will continue to increase depending on how long the restrictions are in place, and if those restrictions remain at the current level or are expanded in the future.”
