Vance predicts holiday air travel will be 'a disaster' if shutdown does not end
Vice President Vance predicted Thursday that holiday air travel will be a “disaster” if the government shutdown does not end.
“It could be a disaster,” Vance told reporters following a roundtable at the White House on how the shutdown is impacting airline travel.
“At that point, you’re talking about people having missed three paychecks. They’ve missed four paychecks. How many of them are not going to show up for work?” he continued. “You take the TSA [Transportation Security Administration] lines that are already too long, even right now, and say half of those people don’t show up for work. Not because they’re not hard workers or good people but because they’ve got to find a different job to feed their families.”
“What happens when the security lines are not an hour long but they’re four hours long? What happens when pilots start not showing up for work because they’re so focused on paying the bills, they can’t fly the plane safely? That’s going to lead to massive delays,” he said. “We want the aviation industry to work. It’s not going to work unless the Democrats reopen the government.”
Vance was speaking at the White House on Thursday alongside Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Airlines for America CEO and former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R), and Teamsters President Sean O’Brien.
Major airports are already seeing flight delays amid growing staffing issues due to the shutdown preventing government workers from getting paid.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a temporary ground stop Sunday because of a staffing shortage at a Southern California air traffic facility.
The shutdown entered its 30th day on Thursday. The longest government shutdown lasted 35 days during the first Trump administration. That shutdown came to end after staffing shortages at airports caused so many disruptions that Republicans and Democrats were pressured to come to a deal. Republicans, including Vance, are urging five more Senate Democrats to join with Senate Republicans to pass a clean continuing resolution to reopen the government.