{"id":50336,"date":"2025-11-24T15:03:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T21:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=50336"},"modified":"2025-11-25T03:07:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T09:07:10","slug":"faa-to-investigate-airlines-that-did-not-comply-with-shutdown-flight-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=50336","title":{"rendered":"FAA to investigate airlines that did not comply with shutdown flight cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Summary<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Airlines failed to meet required flight cuts during government shutdown<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">FAA could fine airlines $75,000 per non-compliant flight<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Airlines canceled only 0.25% of flights, below FAA&#8217;s 3% requirement<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">FAA faces staffing shortage of 3,500 air traffic controllers<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">FAA lifted flight cut requirements entirely on Nov. 16<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">NEWARK\/WASHINGTON, Nov 24 (Reuters) &#8211; The Federal Aviation Administration will send investigative letters to airlines that did not comply with&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/us\/airlines-expect-faa-end-3-flight-cuts-major-us-airports-sources-say-2025-11-17\/\"><u>required flight cuts<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;at 40 major airports prompted by air traffic control safety concerns during the government shutdown, the agency said on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">&#8220;We will be sending out letters of investigation to any of the airlines who we don&#8217;t feel lived up to the requirement to reduce capacity,&#8221; FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said at a news conference at Newark airport. &#8220;That&#8217;s going to be an ongoing investigation.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said airlines must comply with FAA orders. &#8220;If those airlines did not comply &#8230; there should be accountability,&#8221; he said at the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Major airlines did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">FAA officials originally aimed for a gradual increase in reductions to 10% of domestic flights at the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/sustainability\/sustainable-finance-reporting\/us-airlines-cancel-1200-flights-tuesday-government-shutdown-continues-2025-11-11\/\"><u>40 high-traffic U.S. airports<\/u><\/a>, but they opted on Nov. 12 to freeze that requirement at 6% after disruptions declined dramatically as the federal shutdown came to an end. The FAA then dropped the required cuts to 3% before lifting them entirely on Nov. 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Data from Cirium, an aviation analytics firm, showed airlines repeatedly failed to comply with the flight cut requirements and on the final full canceled just 0.25% of flights at those 40 airports \u2014 less than normal cancellations \u2014 and far less than the 3% required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The order said the FAA could seek a fine of up to $75,000 for every flight operated above the mandated limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The agency originally ordered flight cuts to minimize travel disruptions caused by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/world-at-work\/us-airline-group-urges-congress-pay-controllers-during-future-shutdowns-2025-11-18\/\"><u>shortages of air traffic controllers<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;during the federal shutdown, when many of them stopped coming to work because they were not being paid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The FAA is about 3,500&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/sustainability\/sustainable-finance-reporting\/us-hit-with-second-day-flight-cuts-shutdown-drags-2025-11-08\/\"><u>air traffic controllers<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;short of targeted staffing levels. Many had been working mandatory overtime and six-day weeks even before the shutdown led to them working without pay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Absences of air traffic controllers led to tens of thousands of flight cancellations and delays after October 1, when the shutdown began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/us\/faa-investigate-airlines-that-did-not-comply-with-shutdown-flight-cuts-2025-11-24\/\">reuters<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NEWARK\/WASHINGTON, Nov 24 (Reuters) &#8211; The Federal Aviation Administration will send investigative letters to airlines that did not comply with&nbsp;required flight cuts&nbsp;at 40 major airports prompted by air traffic control safety concerns during the government shutdown, the agency said on Monday. &#8220;We will be sending out letters of investigation to any of the airlines who [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":50339,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1155],"tags":[3374,1799,35396],"class_list":["post-50336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-faa","tag-investigate","tag-shutdown-flight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50341,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50336\/revisions\/50341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}