Air Travel Executives Sound the Alarm as DHS Shutdown Continues

While Congress is deadlocked on funding the Department of Homeland Security, leaders at airline organizations say the future of the air industry, and upcoming spring break travel, are at risk.

Hours before the House voted 221-209 on Thursday to pass funding for DHS, Chris Sununu, the president and CEO of Airlines for America, said at a press conference with two other air-travel executives that the department-wide shutdown would lead to longer lines at airports, industry recruitment setbacks, potential loss of staff and difficulty handling the peak spring travel season.

“It used to be kind of a rare thing. Every few years, there’d be an impasse — oh my gosh, the government might shut down for 10 days,” Sununu told reporters. “This is our second one. What’s going to happen next September, by the way? Right? When we go through another appropriations cycle? Because this could all be spurred up again.”

This DHS shutdown came only a few months after the longest government shutdown in history. Negotiations on the funding bill derailed after federal agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minnesota during an immigration enforcement surge. On Wednesday, the department experienced a shake-up when President Donald Trump announced he would replace Secretary Kristi Noem with Sen. Markwayne Mullin.

Lawmakers are still testing ways to dig themselves out of the partial shutdown. Four Democrats, — Reps. Henry Cuellar, Don Davis, Jared Golden and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez — voted with Republicans to pass the House bill on Thursday, but no bill has moved in the Senate yet. Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, tried and failed Tuesday to pass a bill that would fund agencies under the DHS umbrella, excluding Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and the office of the secretary.

Geoff Freeman, the president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, stressed that lawmakers aren’t acting quickly enough.

“We’ve got teams up on the Hill. The simple answer is, no, people are not responding with the urgency that they need to be responding today. They haven’t felt the pressure as of yet,” Freeman said. “Back in October and November, it took several weeks for the pain to really kick in, and it wasn’t until the pain began to kick in that Congress woke up to the problem. Why do we have to watch this movie again?”

The blame game continues on Capitol Hill regarding who is responsible for the DHS shutdown. House Speaker Mike Johnson told NOTUS on Wednesday that he “certainly” hoped there would be enough votes to pass the bill in the Senate.

“If the Democrats vote no, it’s on them,” Johnson said.

Meanwhile, the air traffic control industry has already been stretched thin, with employees feeling demoralized well before this shutdown.

“The only organization in the country that’s allowed to miss a paycheck is the largest employer in the country, the federal government, right? The hypocrisy is disgusting,” Sununu said of workers going without paychecks during a shutdown.

Sununu added that lawmakers “have the luxury” of pointing at each other.

“They all hide behind each other, but they are each individually responsible for the health and well-being of that system and those individuals,” he said.