“I don’t think we’re going anywhere,” Wadhwa said, adding that she had events later and that being stuck in New York would “really mess everything up.”
She was just one of thousands of travelers across the northeastern United States whose plans were upended Friday morning after a shortage of air traffic controllers triggered significant flight delays.
A few hours later, President Donald Trump announced a deal to temporarily reopen the government, easing the increasing strain on federal agencies, for a few weeks at least.
The threat of disruption to the nation’s air-travel system had ratcheted up the pressure on political leaders, who feared a chaotic situation that would anger many more people than the 800,000 unpaid government workers.
Aviation industry workers and travel groups celebrated the breakthrough but worried that it might not last long.
Paul Rinaldi, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the controllers’ union, expressed relief about the agreement but called for an end to a funding process that produces shutdowns.
“The constant funding crises that arise from stop-and-go funding continue to wreak havoc on our system and perpetuate the current staffing crisis, which has resulted in a 30-year low of certified professional controllers,” he said in a statement.
The delays Friday cascaded along the Eastern Seaboard, reaching as far north as Boston. As the FAA rerouted flights and slowed air traffic, passengers saw delays of up to two hours at LaGuardia, which was closed to inbound flights until late morning. The delays began to clear around midday.
The FAA blamed the trouble on a slight increase in the number of controllers calling in sick at two of its air-traffic control facilities on the East Coast, one near Washington and another near Jacksonville, Florida. Those facilities manage air traffic at high altitudes; some flights between the Northeast and Florida that normally would pass over the Atlantic Ocean had to take a wide detour over land.
On Friday, the controllers union said in a statement that it had not organized and would not condone a coordinated sickout by its members.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.