The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed on Friday that there is a ground stop at LaGuardia Airport and that flights are delayed in New York and Florida airports due to air traffic controller absences.
The ground stop, which mean flight cannot fly into the Queens airport, is in effect until 10:45 a.m. ET, FAA said.
Air traffic controllers (ATCs), whose numbers were already at a 30-year low, have been working without pay for 35 days, because of the partial government shutdown.
“We have experienced a slight increase in sick leave at two air traffic control facilities affecting New York and Florida. As with severe storms, we will adjust operations to a safe rate to match available controller resources,” FAA spokesman Gregory Martin wrote ABC News in an email.
Friday marks the beginning of the second missed paycheck for as many as 800,000 partial U.S. government shutdown, now the longest in U.S. history. President Trump and Congressional Democrats are still at at stalemate over the federal budget. The president insists on funding for a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico, a key campaign promise.
“We’ve mitigated the impact by augmenting staffing, rerouting traffic, and increasing spacing between aircraft as needed. The results have been minimal impacts to efficiency while maintaining consistent levels of safety in the national airspace system. The public can monitor air traffic at fly.faa.gov and they should check with airline carriers for more information,” Martin said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
