Check your flights. There will be cancellations at dozens of major airports starting Friday, Nov. 7, due to the ongoing government shutdown, and several Florida airports may be affected.
More than 100 flights in Florida have been canceled as of 8:15 a.m. Friday morning, according to the live tracking site FlightAware. Most of them are at the larger airports in Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Tampa. The number of delayed flights is also increasing.
Nationwide, more than 820 flights within, into or out of the United States have been cancelled so far Friday.
On Wednesday, Nov. 5, the day the government shutdown broke the record for the longest in U.S. history, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced in a news conference that there will be a 10% reduction in flights at 40 major airports at the end of the week.
The move is intended to help alleviate mounting pressure on air traffic controllers, who have not been paid since Oct. 1 and have been working long hours six days a week.
“I think it’s going to lead to more cancellations, but we are going to work with the airlines to do this in a systematic way,” Duffy said, adding that decisions would be based on pressure and not quantity of flights at each airport.
