LGA, JFK Flight Delays: Sequester Cuts Begin to Hit Ordinary Americans

Thus far, fears about the budget sequester have talked about much but were not experienced by the majority of Americans. But on Monday one of the more visible aspects of the sequesterbegan to hit one place that many Americans will visit this year: the airport.

The Federal Aviation Authority implemented on Monday the first of its furlough days for air traffic controllers. Thousands of air traffic controllers were forced to take unpaid days off due to the mandatory budget cuts implemented by the budget sequester. The furlough will cover all 47,000 agency employees, including 15,00 air traffic controllers. Things will only get more hectic from here as the more visible budgets cuts begin to come into view.

Flights all over the East Coast reported major delays. The lack of 1,500 air traffic controllers due to the sequester on Monday meant that flights got delayed. New York’s LaGuardia airport saw delays of 90 minutes. Delays in airports lead to a domino effect of delays in other airports as controllers could not allow planes to takeoff due to air traffic jams at destination airports. It was reported that, in the case of one flight, it would have been faster to buy a ticket on the 8:00 a.m. Acela express train from Washington to New York then to take an 8 a.m. US Airways flight. The train arrived at 10:42 a.m., 4 minutes early. The flight was over two and half hours late, landing at 10:48 a.m.

Unhappy travellers took to pulling out their smartphones and informing social media of their plight, in violation of the requests from the cabin crew to turn off your electronic devices when the plane doors close: