As the United States approaches some of its busiest travel days, the Trump administration is redoubling its efforts to improve the quality and safety of air travel in the wake of a government shutdown that risked making air travel unsafe.

As a result of the Democrat-led government shutdown—the longest government shutdown in U.S. history—thousands of flights were delayed or canceled. The shutdown led to reduced Federal Aviation Administration staffing levels, such as furloughed safety workers and labor attrition. On Monday alone, more than 2,000 flights were canceled and more than 6,000 were delayed around the country.

But travel risks are expected to subside for the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays due to the passage of the Republican-led continuing resolution that reopened the government. The GOP bill will allow air traffic controllers to receive any pay compensation that they would have incurred during the shutdown, and they will also not have to worry about not being paid during some of the busiest travel times of the year. And perhaps just as importantly, the opening of the government will also permit government authorities to make much-needed updates to American transportation systems.

Rep. Jimmy Patronis, R-Fla., a member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and its subcommittee on aviation, explained to The Daily Signal that Congress had “put $15 billion in the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ to update air traffic control technology.” He highlighted the fact that the shutdown supported by the Democrats had delayed the deployment of that new technology.

“Every day that we’re not allowing those innovations and investments to take place. That’s just more stress on a system that is overwhelmed and built on architecture that’s 40 years old,” Patronis told The Daily Signal.

“Shame on the Senate Democrats for not allowing those dollars to be deployed out to help, start embracing these efficiencies as soon as possible,” the Florida congressman added at the time. 

President Donald Trump has touted the improvements he says the updates to the air traffic system will bring. 

“[Air travel] will be much better than normal because we’re buying the most sophisticated avionics and technology for our control towers—and we didn’t have that. We had a guy named [former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg] … he spent billions of dollars trying to patch together our ATC system,” Trump stated in comments to the press this week.

Top members of the Trump administration have likewise promised that the government shutdown will not lead to unsafe travel conditions.

“My department has many responsibilities, but our No. 1 job is safety. This isn’t about politics—it’s about assessing the data and alleviating building risk in the system as controllers continue to work without pay,” Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy recently said. “It’s safe to fly today, and it will continue to be safe to fly next week because of the proactive actions we are taking.” 

Federal Aviation Administrator Bryan Bedford added in a statement, “The FAA will continue to closely monitor operations, and we will not hesitate to take further action to make sure air travel remains safe.”

During the shutdown, the FAA documented the scope of the problems, writing an emergency order on Nov. 6 that acknowledged, “continued delays and unpredictable staffing shortages, which are driving fatigue.”

The shutdown was jeopardizing the safety of travelers. The FAA memo claimed that “risk is further increasing, and the FAA is concerned with the system’s ability to maintain the current volume of operations.”

To ensure passenger safety amidst the shutdown, the FAA announced a variety of measures, including reducing fights by 10% at 40 high-traffic airports around the United States. It also said it would be ending some visual flight rule approaches, restricting commercial space launches and reentries, and prohibiting “parachute operations and photo missions near facilities with a staffing trigger.”

With the shutdown now in the rearview, the Trump administration, the FAA, and the airlines remain optimistic not only about the holiday season in the near future but also long-term improvements to air travel in the United States.

The Daily Signal reached out to the FAA for comment and was directed to the Trump administration officials’ statements.

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