Nearly 100 flights were cancelled at Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway International airports on the first day of flight reductions ordered by the Federal Aviation Administration amid the ongoing government shutdown.
The cancellation numbers include flights that had been scheduled to either arrive at or depart from Chicago’s airports Friday. All told, about 3% of flights departing O’Hare were cancelled and 2% of flights departing Midway were cancelled as of mid-morning Friday, according to FlightAware, a website that tracks flight disruptions.
The scene at O’Hare on Friday was calm, and multiple travelers interviewed by the Tribune said they had no problems. Terminal 2 was so deserted that workers there said it was unusual.
“This is a ghost town,” Engineer Sal Deleon said. “It’s Friday — it should be bustling. Something’s wrong.”
Quite a few TSA workers he knows have quit because they weren’t getting paid.
“You’re cutting off people’s lifeline,” Deleon said. “They’ve still got to pay the bills.”
The number of flight cancellations is expected to climb over the next week. The FAA announced Wednesday it would reduce flights by 10% across 40 “high-volume” markets to maintain the safety of air travel as the federal government shutdown — now the longest in U.S. history — drags on.
Flight cuts were supposed to start at 4% Friday before ramping up to 10%.
Beth Garza and Stacie McClain had smooth sailing arriving from Bentonville, Arkansas, for a friends weekend in Chicago.
“We actually got here early,” McClain said. “You wouldn’t know anything was going on.”
Lucy Crist of Chicago said her flight on American Airlines to Albany, N.Y., was on time, though the carrier was offering flight credits for passengers to take a later flight, as often occurs with overbooked planes.
Crist is part of a group of friends who went to high school together in Kenya, some of whom now live in New York.
“They’re trying to beg us to cancel,” she said. “But I want to go to my girls’ reunion.”
Air traffic controllers have been working without pay since the shutdown started. They’ve already missed their first full paycheck and some are working mandatory overtime as much as 10 hours a day, six days a week, according to their union.
Staffing issues at air traffic towers around the country have led to flight delays throughout the shutdown, which began Oct. 1.
The FAA’s order to reduce flights also came as President Donald Trump’s administration ramps up pressure on Democrats to end the shutdown. Democrats have thus far refused to acquiesce to Republican demands to reopen the government without first addressing expiring health care subsidies.
Airlines have said passengers can rebook their flights without penalties or fees and have directed them to monitor their flight status online or on airline apps.
United has said the cancellations won’t impact long-haul international flights or hub-to-hub travel. O’Hare is one of the airline’s hubs, meaning flights between Chicago’s largest airport and other United hubs including Los Angeles, Newark Liberty and Washington Dulles International airports are safe from cuts.
United is maintaining a list of cancellations through Sunday on its website. The airline said Friday that about half of customers with cancelled flights had been rebooked on flights within four hours of their original departure time.
In a statement Thursday, American Airlines — the second-largest operator at O’Hare — said it had cancelled a total of about 220 flights per day Friday through Monday.
“Even with these cancellations, we plan to operate around 6,000 daily flights. We are continuing to communicate with impacted customers,” American said.
On Friday, only a few flights were canceled on American’s schedule at O’Hare. Those flights were headed to Cincinnati and Memphis, and from Boston, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Omaha.
Some flights had to wait for a gate to open because they were full—a chronic problem at O’Hare, even with the cancellations.