Air Traffic Control Furloughs Trigger Mass Flight Delays

Delays were being reported this morning at John Wayne Airport and Los Angeles International Airport as federal budget cuts force furloughs of air traffic controllers.

As of about 10:20 a.m., about 35 percent of flights departing LAX were delayed, as were about five percent of arrivals, according to the website flightview.com. Additionally, Flights from John Wayne Airport to Dallas Ft.-Worth could be delayed up to 19 minutes, due to the air traffic control staffing issues, according to Ian Gregor, spokesman for the FAA.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, there were about 1,200 delays nationwide that were "attributable to staffing reductions resulting from the furlough(s)."

"There were more than 1,400 additional delays as a result of weather and other factors," the FAA reported.     By 6 p.m. Monday, about 25 percent of departures and arrivals at LAX were running late while at Orange County's John Wayne Airport almost all flights were taking off on time and a little more than 20 percent of the flights coming in were delayed, according to flightview.com.

Delays have taken hold at airports in Southern California and around the nation as a result of the furloughing of air traffic controllers under federal sequestration budget cuts.

However, Most flights at Orange County's John Wayne Airport were on time on Tuesday. Jenny Wedge, airport spokeswoman, said there were no other delays directly related to the air-traffic furloughs.

"Today we are noticing delays that appear to be related to weather in different areas of the country," Wedge said.

Regionally, the average delay Sunday night was three hours in the Southern California Terminal Radius Approach Control (TRACON), according to Doug Church, the director of communications for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the union representing the controllers.

"They basically cut their arrival rate in half," Church said. "That's no way to run the air traffic control system."

The Federal Aviation Administration is requiring all workers to take one unpaid day off of every 10-day period through Sept. 30, and that goes beyond control towers in airports, Church said.

The TRACON in Miramar controls aircraft after takeoff and on approach throughout Southern California, and there's a regional control center in Palmdale that controls aircraft at high altitudes. The furloughs at those facilities affect flights throughout the system.

"Like a water spigot, their effects are felt," Church said.

According to the FAA, the agency "is implementing traffic management initiatives at airports and facilities around the country" due to the furloughs mandated by budget cuts.

"Travelers can expect to see a wide range of delays that will change throughout the day depending on staffing and weather-related issues," according to the FAA.

"For example, the FAA is experiencing staffing challenges at the New York and Los Angeles En Route Centers and at the Dallas-Ft.Worth and Las Vegas TRACONs," the agency reported today.

"Controllers will space planes farther apart so they can manage traffic with current staff, which will lead to delays at airports, including DFW, Las Vegas, and LAX," the agency reported. "The FAA also expects delays at Newark and LaGuardia because of weather and winds."     The FAA reports that it is working with the airlines throughout the day to try to minimize delays for travelers, who are urged to check the status of their flights and to visit fly.faa.gov for the latest airport delay information.

- City News Service