Industry fears damage from US gov’t shutdown
America’s busiest airport, Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International, is a blur of activity on the best of days. But an extra layer of anxiety gripped the airport Friday, the eve of a three-day holiday weekend. The partial government shutdown—the longest ever—has thinned the ranks of federal workers who staff airport security lines. And some travelers had braced for the worst.
“I have a 3 o’clock flight, and I arrived at 10:15 a.m.,” Beth Lambert said while waiting to check in at a Delta Air Lines counter as her five-year-old, Michael, rode around on his wheeled bag like a scooter. “We’re going to be hanging out for a while.”
The scene at most of the nation’s airports has so far been marked more by concerned passengers showing up early than by missed flights. Longer lines are evident at some airports. But delays resulting from a rise in federal security screeners calling in sick have been slight.
Yet concern is quickly growing.
President Donald Trump and Democrats in Congress remain far apart over Trump’s insistence on funding for a wall along the Mexican border as the price of reopening the government. With the two sides trading taunts and avoiding talks, travel industry analysts and economists have been calculating the potential damage should the shutdown drag into February or beyond.
Airlines and hotels would suffer. So would parks and restaurants that cater to travelers. And, eventually, the broader US economy, already absorbing a trade war with China and a global economic slowdown, would endure another blow.
The travel and tourism industries generate about $1.6 trillion in US economic activity—one-twelfth of the economy—and one in 20 jobs, according to the Commerce Department. Macroeconomic Advisers says it now expects the economy to expand at just a 1.4 percent annual rate in the first three months of this year, down from its previous forecast of 1.6 percent, because of reduced government spending during the shutdown.
America’s air-travel system will face its sternest this weekend, which coincides with Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, Jan. 21, a federal holiday.
On Friday, the Transportation Security Administration sent a small team of extra screeners to beef up checkpoints at the airport in Newark, New Jersey, which has had among the longest lines in the country this week.
The TSA predicts it will screen over eight million passengers between Friday, Jan. 18, and Monday, up 10.8 percent from last year’s MLK weekend. And it will do so with fewer screeners. On Thursday, Jan 17, the TSA said 6.4 percent of screeners missed work —nearly double the 3.8 percent rate on the same day in 2018.
A TSA spokesman said the agency was offering overtime to screeners for this weekend, though those workers wouldn’t be paid—for their regular pay or for overtime—until the shutdown eventually ends.
On top of potentially longer airport security lines this weekend, a blast of winter weather could snarl travel this weekend in the Midwest and Northeast.
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, home to Delta Air Lines, has likely been the hardest hit airport. Delta said this week that the shutdown will cost it $25 million in January because fewer federal employees and contractors will be flying. By contrast, United Airlines, which has a substantial presence around Washington, DC, said it hasn’t felt much impact yet.
But the airlines fear that if the shutdown doesn’t end soon, more TSA agents will call in sick or quit. A shortage of screeners would cause security lines to swell. Air traffic controllers, who are also working without pay, say they, too, are short-staffed. If the controller shortage became severe enough, the government could restrict the number of flights, though some analysts think that’s unlikely.
“Luckily this is the low season—January is one of the weakest months of the year,” said Savanthi Syth, an airline analyst for Raymond James. “This spilling into February is a real concern. The risk is that the longer this drags out, it might cause some passengers to say, ‘I don’t want to deal with all the hassle. Maybe I won’t take that trip.’” /