ATLANTA — Delta CEO Ed Bastian says as long as lawmakers vote to reopen the government on Wednesday, he believes air travel will be back to normal by the weekend.
Bastian appeared on CNBC on Wednesday morning and talked about the impact the FAA flight reductions have had on the airline industry on top of essential airport employees not being paid because of the shutdown.
“The last week’s been tough. At Delta, we’ve had over 2,000 cancellations from last Friday when we were mandated to start pulling our schedule down, and we had some pretty serious (air traffic controller) shortages on staffing right through the weekend,” Bastian said.
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport was one of 40 airports the FAA required to reduce flights throughout the country because of the shutdown.
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Bastian said even though the FAA required a 4% reduction in flights, he said because of other factors, like weather, those numbers were more like a 10% reduction in flight.
“To give you a sense of the impact, Saturday afternoon we had a little thunderstorm come through Atlanta. The actual tower in Atlanta reduced their arrival rates down to 20 per hour. That’s like a heavy snowstorm. Because of staffing,” Bastian said. “Normal times for that time of day would be 80 an hour.”
Bastian said he supported the FAA and Secretary Duffy over the reductions, because of the safety impacts.
“There is no question there was a safety risk,” Bastian said. “We had to take proactive attention. The thing we don’t like is being a political football.”
Bastian said he is hopeful that lawmakers vote to reopen the government on Wednesday evening, and if it does, flight travel should be back to normal by the weeknd.
“I think it’ll be back to normal, as close to normal as you can get by Friday, Saturday,” Bastian said.