Government shutdown affects airports with travel delays, unpaid federal workers and possible future problems

WACO, Texas (KWTX) - Today marks the 30th day of the government shutdown.

Lawmakers are standing firm in defending their sides, as the shutdown continues without a vote being passed.

House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, spoke today on how Democrats refused to vote again Tuesday on a bill he says would harm people across the country if passed.

" That’s what the one big ugly bill was all about. Largest cut to Medicaid in American history, ripping food away from the mouths of children, seniors, veterans and families. All of this was done to provide massive tax breaks to their billionaire donors,” Jeffries maintained.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson defended the GOP’s bill in a conference today, saying that as long as the shutdown continues people will be forced suffer without their paychecks, until the Democrats vote to pass the bill.

“Millions of federal workers and we’ve listed them here every day...You’re talking about air traffic controllers and TSA agents and park rangers and border patrol agents, law enforcement around the country...Thousands of flights by results will be canceled or delayed... With each passing day, the pain gets more real,” Johnson said.

The effects of the shutdown are being felt across the country, as the Federal Aviation Administration has tracked multiple airport closures and delays.

FlightAware data shows that inbound flights to the DFW airport were delayed by an average of 21 minutes today.

Federal workers like the ones who work at Waco airport are missing their paychecks this week.

While many are still showing up to work, it gets harder every day.

While the Waco airport is not seeing major delays, Airway Transport Safety Specialists, like Timothy Lindsey, have growing concerns if the shutdown continues in case their systems go down and they don’t have what they need to fix it.

“Eventually, sometimes things go out it can cause a snowballing effects to the other airports, it can cause delay if there’s bad weather, if the radar is out, air traffic controllers can’t see where the planes are in the sky to know when they are coming,” Lindsey explained.

Lindsey is a Local Union Representative for PASS, the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists.

He adds that not knowing when the next paycheck will come is an added stress on federal workers, which could end if the shutdown does.

“we don’t want to have people work on an instrument landing system or a radar, or something that’s a really critical piece of equipment, and then in the back of their mind they are having to worry about like is my car going to get repossessed or am I going to default on my mortgage...we want them to be focused solely on the mission of keep the flying public safe,” Lindsey explained.

The Senate will reconvene on Monday at 3 p.m.

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