U.S. airports and fliers around the country face widespread disruptions if automatic spending cuts take effect next week, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Friday in an effort to pressure Congress to delay the cuts.
LaHood illustrated a bleak picture of delayed and canceled flights, shuttered airports and irritated air travelers if across-the-board spending cuts are allowed to take place under the process known as sequestration. Travelers could start to feel effects in April, he said.
LaHood told reporters at the White House that flights to major cities such as Chicago, New York and San Francisco could see delays of up to 90 minutes at peak travel times. Delays in Chicago or in major coastal airports tend to ripple across the country quickly because they're frequent flight transfer points. O'Hare was already the fifth-most delay plagued airport in the U.S. last year.
Security delays could also be significant. Homeland Security Department of Secretary Janet Napolitano said in Senate committee testimony last week that cuts could increase passenger wait times by as much as an hour at airport security checkpoints, leading many travelers to miss flights.
The potential cutbacks would be especially damaging to large airlines that cater to business travelers, who are the most sensitive to flight delays, said Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst at Hudson Crossing LLC.
"They have the most flexibility, and they also have the least patience," he said. "Since airlines rely on business travelers for their profits, this could have a disproportionately negative impact on airline revenues, profits and earnings."
Potential delays could also discourage some vacationers from booking summer travel, he said.
Airline consultant Robert Mann said customers will blame the airlines for delays, even if they're the government's fault.
"When you look at how customers rate airlines, ratings go right to the bottom whenever delays are involved," Mann said. "And it doesn't matter what causes the delay. A delayed passenger is a ticked-off passenger, and that reflects on the airline."
The flight delays will be caused, LaHood said, by a number of behind-the-scenes cuts including employee furloughs and a reduction in equipment maintenance.
LaHood said the cuts will also mean the elimination of overnight shifts at 60 air traffic control towers across the country and the closure of more than 100 towers.
Under the plan, local airport towers that would see an end to overnight monitoring include Midway and two smaller airports, Dupage and Peoria International.
There are 48 Midway flights that operate between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., a spokeswoman for the Chicago Department of Aviation said. Southwest Airlines, which has one of its biggest flight operations at Midway, said it’s too early to assess the potential effect on carriers and the airports they serve.
The closure list includes five Illinois airport towers: Central Illinois Regional Airport at Bloomington-Normal, Decatur Airport, Dupage in West Chicago, Southern Illinois Airport in Murphysboro and Marion County regional in Marion.
Some $85 billion in cuts are due to be applied across government programs on March 1 unless lawmakers act. The cuts were designed to be so onerous they would force a compromise over a broader deficit reduction package, but this has proven elusive.
President Obama has urged Congress to postpone the cuts for several months to let the White House and congressional Republicans hammer out a deficit-cutting deal. Republicans, who have argued that government overspending is a leading problem hurting the U.S. economy, have rebuffed the president's efforts. A number of Republican members of Congress have said that while the cuts may be painful, they could benefit the nation's finances in the long term.
LaHood said sequestration would lead to $1 billion in spending cuts at the Transportation Department, of which more than $600 million would be to the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees U.S. air travel.
The "vast majority" the FAA's approximately 47,000 employees face furloughs of at least a day per pay period until the end of September, he said.
LaHood said the traveling public could start seeing delays just ahead of the busy summer travel season.
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the main union representing controllers in the U.S., said Friday's announcement of "draconian" cuts was worse than it anticipated.
"Once towers are closed, the airports they serve may be next," the union said in a statement. "We believe the delay estimates provided by the FAA are conservative, and the potential for disruptions could be much higher."
But the main trade association representing U.S. airlines urged lawmakers to work together to reach a deal, and warned that air transportation "should not be used as political football."
- Reuters and Tribune staff reporters Gregory Karp and Samantha Bomkamp contributed to this report.
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