AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Well, the government could be back up and running by the end of this week, but the country's airports are a different story. The House is expected to vote on a spending bill as early as tomorrow, but the issues with air traffic will likely linger, which could mean more disruption for travelers as we inch towards Thanksgiving. Since Friday, more than 7,000 flights have been canceled according to the tracking site flightaware.com. So how should travelers navigate flight plans? Well, for help answering that question, we're joined now by Randy Babbitt. He served as FAA administrator from 2009 to 2011. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
RANDY BABBITT: Well, thank you. Nice to be here.
CHANG: And nice to have you. OK, so what's your assessment of how long it'll take for operations to get back to normal?
BABBITT: Well, it's going to take a bit to unwind, and the responsibility is not going to fall completely on the air traffic control operation - you know, the air traffic controllers and so forth. The carriers themselves have had problems with - when you begin to cut these flights down, their flight crews run out of flight time, they have limitations, the airplanes are in the wrong cities and so forth. They're going to have to sort all of that out as well. So a good deal of responsibility will be the carriers getting, you know, their schedules and the aircraft and personnel back in the right positions to resume normal flying.
CHANG: Right. And I just want to note that the transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, he said that flight cuts will still keep going until the FAA has stabilized operations. So let me ask you, how do you advise travelers prepare in the meantime, even if the government does reopen?
BABBITT: Well, I think, with an abundance of caution, I would advise every traveler to stay in contact with either their travel agent or the airline itself. Watch for the monitors of - you know, sometimes they send them emails, sometimes they - in some cases, they even call people. But...
CHANG: And text.
BABBITT: ...Keep tuned. And I also think I would allow a little extra time at the airport. The TSA is equally burdened, and there'll be a surge of traffic, of course, and that'll challenge their system to get people through security into the boarding. So I think just patience and take as much caution as you can to keep in the information loop as to the status of your flights.
CHANG: OK, so get there super early, people. All right, let me ask you about the politics of all this because the Trump administration had ordered flight reductions in, like, 40 airports across the country, aiming to cut flights by 10% by this Friday. That was the plan, at least. Do you think that was a wise decision, to use air travel to exert political pressure during this shutdown?
BABBITT: Well, you know, without stepping too far out on the political limb, I think it's unfortunate. You know, when you look at the payroll of the air traffic controllers, we found money to pay lots of other areas, and I would say they're all justified. We paid over 100,000 soldiers, and that's appropriate. But we couldn't find the money to pay 14,000 air traffic controllers is sad.
This air traffic control system is a huge, huge support and, you know, part of the infrastructure of this country to move goods and services from your areas. It's not just people. You know, there's hundreds of cargo airplanes in the air, taking all the things that you've ordered on, you know, the various places you can order from...
CHANG: Sure.
BABBITT: ...Without advertising.
CHANG: Yeah.
BABBITT: And that all gets harmed.
CHANG: Yeah.
BABBITT: It's a huge blow to the economy.
CHANG: I mean, you put your finger on something I want to ask you about. Because the thing is, the FAA was already facing challenges, even before the government shutdown. How do you think those previous problems have been made worse by what has happened over the past 40 days during this shutdown? Are those problems worse, you think?
BABBITT: Yes, they are. The reality is the FAA, like a lot of companies, when we got into the peak of COVID, air traffic was down to about 30% of what it normally is, and so carriers began to lay people off. You don't want to have a hundred percent of the workforce when they're only going to do 30% of the work. And so they offered early outs and retirements and, you know, lots of options. And so did the FAA. Well, the problem is, when you - traffic came back far more quickly than anticipated. And you can't just say, well, OK, let's just hire a bunch of - no, it takes several years to train an air traffic controller. Just like a pilot. You don't just, you know, oh, well, we need some pilots. Let's get some.
CHANG: Yeah.
BABBITT: Well, it takes a long time to get the ratings and the training and all the things. Well, the same is true with controllers. And there's an added issue for both. Controllers are not interchangeable. A controller who is, you know, doing approach control traffic into the New York area...
CHANG: Yeah.
BABBITT: ...Can't go down next week and be the tower operator in Richmond. It's a different job.
CHANG: Right.
BABBITT: And it takes a transition and training to get there. And that all takes time, and we've been caught as victims of that time.
CHANG: That is Randy Babbitt, former administrator of the FAA. Thank you very much, Randy.
BABBITT: Well, thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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