Airports in Crisis as Schumer Shutdown Leads to More Flight Cancellations
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy: “My department has many responsibilities, but our number one job is safety.”
You know what the shutdown has done? Reinforced my knowledge that the government is too big and we need to privatize all the things!
Especially the entire air industry!
A shutdown wouldn’t affect the air traffic control industry if it fell under the private sector.
The Transportation Department ordered 40 major airports to reduce flight operations by 4% starting today.
The number will grow to 10% next week, all thanks to the Schumer Shutdown!
THANK A DEMOCRAT! pic.twitter.com/DWh1eGEIaW
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) November 7, 2025
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stressed that safety remains his top priority during the shutdown.
“My department has many responsibilities, but our number one job is safety,” Duffy said. ‘This isn’t about politics – it’s about assessing the data and alleviating building risk in the system as controllers continue to work without pay.”
Rep. Rick Larsen, the ranking member on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, described the move as “dramatic and unprecedented.”
Larsen demanded “transparency” from Duffy.
Duffy retorted, “If people want to question us, I would throw it back at them. Open up the government.”
This morning, Duffy used Larsen’s words against him (I don’t know if it was on purpose, but still): “We are taking unprecedented action at @USDOT because we are in an unprecedented shutdown.”
I have done all I can to minimize disruption in the airspace. I’m trying to get people where they want to go and to get there safely.
We are taking unprecedented action at @USDOT because we are in an unprecedented shutdown. pic.twitter.com/3Yk5G426hy
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) November 7, 2025
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Comments
If the Sec Of Transportation had it in him, he would make sure that the cancelled flights included and were mostly limited to those on which Democrat Senators had reservations!
It’s not up to him.
Yeah from what I saw DOT picks which Airports have to reduce traffic based on how well staffed air traffic control is. It is up to the airports and airlines to decide how to do it.
Not a good idea. Hint: see beached whale in NJ.
Wouldn’t bother Pelosi, she’s had private military flights for decades
All blue state would make me happy
We can fly around them
We’ll use it for experience, for when the sane breaks away from the insane
The Communists are digging in and have no intention of ending the shutdown. They believe a prolonged shutdown is a political winner for them. There will be no deal short of total surrender by the GOP (which unfortunately is the most likely outcome).
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5594333-government-shutdown-deal-democrats-trump/
Since the Communists plan to eliminate the filibuster the moment they take the Senate the smart thing for the GOP to do would be to beat the Communists at their own game and get their budget priorities passed. But too many conservatives seem to believe the filibuster will somehow magically stay intact no matter who runs the Senate.
Exactly my thoughts about the filibuster. While DemoncRats of the past have allowed the filibuster to remain in place, with exceptions, past performance is no assurance of future performance. The Republicans should end the filibuster for money bills that shut down the government. If DemoncRats want to end it completely, that is up to them.
Unfortunately, the are around a dozen R senators who are a hard no on ending the filibuster, so even if leadership wanted to have a vote they would lose. Congressional repubs could f up a wet dream.
If you ended the filibuster we would get some benefits like ending this shutdown, maybe doing away with Obamacare, and maybe reciprocity for concealed carry permits. But what happens if in 4 yrs the dems get the white house and a small majority in both house. Well we know from what they have said that all voter id laws would be outlawed, abortion would be legal in every state for any reason with no parental consent, medicare for all would pass so say goodbye to your insurance, taxes would go way up on the wealthy and over time what was considered wealthy would extend to what is now middle class, Puerto Rico and DC would become states so almost no way to get a Rep majority again to undo all this. And if you think maybe we could I would bet that between the election where they lost the majority and the swearing in of new members they put the filibuster back with a rule you had to have 60 votes to take it away. And if you think the Supreme Court might save us they would add enough judges to give them a majority there and make sure they were judges that would vote for progressive policy whether constitutional or not. So there is just too much that could go very wrong with scrapping the filibuster.
You are assuming DemoncRats will maintain the filibuster. I am assuming they will not.
I prefer the other popular solution: no more short-form filibuster. You want to filibuster, put up your marathon speechifiers. Let it be apparent to EVERYBODY who is holding up the people’s business.
IMO the smart play politically is wait a bit to cross that stream b/c like the Rubicon once crossed there’s no turning back. It will inevitably lead to great mischief when the d/prog eventually retake the Senate hopefully far in the future. Sure the d/prog will almost certainly gut the filibuster at some future point but if we can make them fold their cards now without doing so then why not. It isn’t as if the GoP, the party of less taxes, smaller gov’t should want the end of a shutdown more than the d/prog, the party of big govt and big spending.
I’d let the internal pressure build on the d/prog from their own coalition of interests. They are the party of big govt and big spending who are now ironically refusing to spend and shrinking the the gov’t. The federal employee unions have already come out in favor of ending the shutdown with passage of a clean CR. As the well of Federal funds/grants to various d/prog aligned interests dries up more pressure will build. IMO they will fold.
In the meantime the Trump WH should be using DOGE to the maximum extent possible to ID further cuts to personnel and entire agencies. They should start laying out markers for what the POTUS will accept in any new budget and importantly what he will not and which will likely provoke his veto.
One easy,.common sense change that most everyone can see is air travel. Past time to privatize the ATC. The FAA can still regulate/oversee and inspect for compliance but the costs should be put onto ticket prices. Definitely the same for TSA. Push that monstrosity back onto local airport authorities. The airports can increase gate fees and thus ticket prices to pay the costs. User fees are fine for drivers on the interstates and highways so why not for air travel? Homeland Security can still oversee and inspect/test the security. Air Marshals can still be provided. So could some funds for antiterrorism but not paying for TSA.
As for the filibuster… let the shutdown play out and see.what happens. The current CR in the Senate expires in a couple weeks, right before Thanksgiving. IMO the GoP would be well advised to wait until then. At that point, roughly the 20th of Nov, call the HoR into session to pass a new clean CR lasting till the end of February. Have Senate majority change the rules and allow a simple majority to pass a ‘clean CR’ but only a clean CR.. Then pass it out. That restarts everything in time for December payments to go out and gets ATC back into the towers to get folks to Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving.
Don’t forget that before 9/11 the airlines were responsible for screening passengers. In fact there was very little attention paid to security before a spate of aircraft hijackings from 1968 to 1972. For better or worse (mostly worse), the TSA was created to federalize airport security in 2001, bringing us stinky feet and tiny shampoo bottles.
I’m not forgetting it but rather insisting upon a return to the local airport authorities funding the screening and being responsible for security. Transfer the equipment to the airport authorities. Let them figure out how to fund the personnel and other costs to meet a minimum threshold of ‘security screening’. The Feds can inspect it for compliance and efficacy. Feds can add to the # of Air Marshals with some of the.savings. Airports which routinely failed would go into receivership under the Feds who would fire and otherwise knock heads together to improve the system. Then turn it back over to new management with the prior management of that Airport Authority permanently bared from the industry.
The map is misleading, it seems to imply the delays are limited to the highlighted airports. Our air system is a hub-and-spoke network, and virtually all of the impacted airports are hubs, ergo everyone will feel the impact.
Everyone who flies certainly will be impacted. Some, perhaps many people, don’t though any items shipped to them via air freight would be impacted.
Don’t care. After I got strip searched 3 times in a row by uneducated DEI TSA drones I swore off flying. Been 20yrs and haven’t missed it at all.