On October 1, 2025, the U.S. government came to a grinding halt. Federal agencies pressed pause on almost every function, and only employees deemed “essential” continued their day-to-day tasks.
The impact of the shutdown reverberated across the travel industry: The nation’s museums shut their doors, national parks remained severely understaffed, and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers had to choose between working for free and losing their jobs.
The longest government shutdown in American history did more than inconvenience travelers; it shone a light on concerns about air traffic control (ATC) staffing that have been festering for 40 years.
“I don’t think we ever reached the number [of staff] that the FAA allows in facilities around the entire country,” Steven Meitz, a retired air traffic controller, told TheTravel. “They always seem to be lacking.”
The shutdown came on the heels of a challenging year for ATC, marked by a string of incidents that rattled the nerves of travelers. In January 2025, a passenger plane collided with a military helicopter near Washington, D.C.’s Ronald Reagan National Airport (DCA). The incident was fatal.
And the accidents kept coming. Newark Liberty Airport spent weeks in the news following technology failures and reports of staffing shortages, while reports of airplanes “clipping” each other repeatedly made headlines in the weeks and months leading up to the shutdown.
Despite everything ATC has faced this year, Meitz—who worked for the agency for 27 years—puts full faith in the abilities of his colleagues.
“They keep airplanes apart no matter what the concerns are, including working without a paycheck,” Meitz said. “They do the job, they’re an amazing group of type A people.”
That said, he knows that the effects of this year’s shutdown won’t easily be forgotten.
U.S. Airspace Is Busier Than Most Americans Realize
An air traffic controller’s job is no cakewalk. They handle more than 44,000 flights across more than 29 million square miles of airspace every day. And for the more than three million airline passengers on those flights, ATCs are the most important people on the planet.
“It’s a tough job,” Meitz said. “The attrition during training to full performance level is quite high.”
Meitz began his career with ATC in 1981, not long after over 12,000 members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) walked off the job on August 3 after contract negotiations with the FAA broke down.
Over the course of 48 hours, according to the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) Libraries, around 7,000 flights were canceled. Two days later, on August 5, U.S. President Ronald Reagan responded by firing more than 11,000 ATCs who refused to report to their post. Meritz told The Travel
“I was hired right away. I probably got a phone call two weeks after the strike and went down to [the training facility in] Oklahoma City in December of 1981, and went to my first facility in April of 1982, which was the control tower in Champaign, Illinois.”
Champaign’s facility, Meitz’s first post, was bustling thanks to the flying school at the University of Illinois, as well as special rules that were in place to allow take-offs and landings on taxiways.
“I think I figured out that […] we could have eight simultaneous takeoffs and landings on the airport,” he said. “It was a very complex operation that prepared a lot of the controllers to go to bigger, better facilities.”
But it’s not just about the volume of flights ATCs monitor; it’s also about the hours they need to work. One of the benefits of being in the first controller class after the strike, Meitz said, is being able to mostly avoid what is known as the “Rattler”.
“[It’s] when you start off your week working evening shifts, and you transition to day shifts, and then you transition to a night shift. So you work four to five different shifts during the week. Can you imagine how that messed up your sleep schedule, and you had to maintain clarity in your brain when you went to work?” Meitz explained.
Despite the FAA’s ramp-up of hiring after the strike and the introduction of accelerated training protocols, the ATC wasn’t able to get fully back on its feet. Even still, “We were probably staffed better than facilities are now,” Meitz said.
Staffing Is Just Part Of Air Traffic Control’s Problem
According to a report published in summer 2025 by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, between 2013 and 2023, the FAA hired only two-thirds of the controllers its staffing model called for—a disparity triggered in part by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The report shows that not all control towers struggle with staffing shortages: About 30 percent of FAA facilities fall short of the agency’s staffing target by more than 10 percent, while another 30 percent of facilities are overstaffed. That said, a significant subset of understaffed facilities (including 19 of the FAA’s largest) falls 15 percent below staffing requirements.
Many of these are categorized as Terminal Radar Approach Control, or TRACON, and are responsible for managing the airspace around major airports. These woefully understaffed TRACON facilities account for 40 percent of all flight delays in the U.S.
To make matters worse, ATC is often working with outdated technology. In his first public remarks after being sworn in as the FAA’s new administrator, Bryan Bedford said in early September 2025 that America’s current system is “failing every day”.
According to FedScoop.com, a publication focused on technology in the federal government, the agency is still relying on floppy disks for some functions, whereas European control towers are light-years ahead.
“I’ve seen pictures of European equipment, and it looks state-of-the-art, futuristic. We don’t have that capability because we’re spending taxpayers’ money to do this,” Meitz explained.
When asked if privatization of the FAA could provide the solution, Meitz responded: “There’s the million-dollar question.” Meitz went on to say
“Privatization has been dangled over the FAA for probably 25 or 30 years, For every problem you’re solving by privatization, the FAA loses the capabilities that they have. You’re not answering to the taxpayers anymore, you’re answering to the people that own the stock at the company. I think if the FAA were to open up the purse strings a little bit and fund the way they need to for staffing and the equipment, things can improve.”
Travelers Should Feel Safe, But There Is No Quick Fix For ATC
Given the year the FAA has had in terms of bad press and the Old Farmer’s Almanac predicting “pockets of wild” weather this winter, it wouldn’t be a surprise if more travelers choose to stay grounded this holiday season.
According to Meitz, travelers should trust controllers. “I feel safe flying. I know the controllers are doing a great job.”
There is no short-term solution to the challenges ATC faces. Overhauling the outdated technology could take years, and previous attempts proved unsuccessful. And there are no corners to be cut when it comes to training.
Meitz also knows that a $10,000 bonus isn’t going to make controllers’ memories of this year’s shutdown disappear, and he predicts that the future may be rocky if the government doesn’t invest in long-term solutions.
“I found it insulting and shameful that the president dangled the bonus to controllers to continue on working without pay when these people were working mandatory overtime, and they couldn’t pay their mortgage,” Meitz said.
He went on to add that he felt every ATC should receive a bonus. “I hope the flying public recognizes how important air traffic is,” he continued. “You put two airplanes together, and people die. That’s a job that you can’t fail at, ever.”
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