After weeks of the longest US federal government shutdown in history, air travel was quickly becoming a nightmare and those with travel plans are relieved that it looks like the government is opening back up. Now air‐traffic controllers can all come back to work and TSA agents will start getting much-needed paychecks again.
Assuming the worst is behind us, frequent flyers across the country and others with air travel plans are breathing a sigh of relief.
While the shutdown caused massive delays at some major airports and a large number of cancellations that left travelers angry and stranded, Piedmont Triad International Airport came through the shutdown with very few disruptions.
PTI Executive Director Kevin Baker told the Rhino Times on Wednesday, Nov. 12, that there had been some hiccups caused by the shutdown but none of them were major.
“We had very little shutdown operational impacts here,” he said. “There were some cancellations – but that happens during normal times too.”
He said things like weather and mechanical issues cause delays in ordinary times and what they saw at PTI for the past month hadn’t been dramatically worse.
“TSA and ATCT [Airport Traffic Control Tower] folks are really dedicated and kept things safely moving along,” Baker said.
There is some other good news for the airport when it comes to passenger traffic: The shutdown didn’t throw the airport off track of a major goal it’s been eyeing for years. Baker said 2025 should still be the year that PTI finally returns to pre-Covid passenger numbers. One thing that’s helped has been the addition of new carriers and new flights.
Baker made that prediction in July of this year and he said this week nothing has changed his mind.
Last summer, Baker told the Rhino Times “We were just shy of two million last year and, with growth this year and the addition of Breeze, we should be back to 2019 this year,”
The airport is prospering in other ways as well. The aviation megasite has been a gigantic hit with Jet Zero being the latest big score with an estimated new job count of over 15,000 jobs.
And plans are in the works for substantial concourse upgrades and improvements to enhance passenger experience. It’s all part of a broader effort to make PTI more competitive and more attractive – not just for flyers in the Greensboro area, but also for those throughout the entire region who usually choose to fly out of Raleigh or Charlotte.
Other airports weren’t so lucky during the shutdown.
Although Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rules require essential personnel such as air-traffic controllers and TSA agents to continue working during a funding lapse, the 2025 shutdown put many of them on unpaid status and created staffing shortages.
The result was that airports in high-volume markets saw growing delays, cancellations and threatened flight reductions. For example, the FAA announced plans to reduce air traffic by about 10 percent at 40 major airports in order to maintain safety due to fatigue and absences among controllers.
Major hubs were hardest hit.
At Hartsfield‑Jackson Atlanta International Airport delays averaged four hours on some early mornings, with cancellation rates hitting nearly 17 percent and with nearly 40 percent of flights delayed.
At San Francisco International Airport more than 100 flights were delayed on one Monday alone; nationwide more than 5,000 flights were delayed on a single Sunday during the government’s closure.
The ripple effects included late aircraft arrivals, crew-duty time limitations and equipment mispositioning – all stemming from understaffing and stress in the system.
Many travelers reported difficulty re-booking, longer waits in security lines and greater unpredictability. Even after the shutdown ends, the backlog means travelers should expect disruptions for several more days.
Smaller and mid-level airports such as PTI benefited from having fewer connecting flights and less congestion – which helped them weather the storm more smoothly. Their more modest schedules made staffing stress easier to absorb, and passengers traveling locally experienced fewer system-wide disruptions. In contrast, the busiest airports operate on very thin margins – where even moderate staff shortfalls cascade into major operational disruptions.
Since it will take a while for things to clear up, aviation officials are still telling people planning air travel in the near term to allow extra time, monitor flight status closely, adjust expectations around cancellations or re-routing and consider avoiding peak travel days if they can.
