48 flights have been canceled today, November 7th, at SFO, thus far — with more expected before the day’s end.
We’re now in the longest (and likely most costly) government shutdown in American history. Social security checks remain in limbo, and tens of thousands of federal employees are still without them. While SNAP was fully funded this month, it remains unclear what December will hold for the tens of millions who rely on the program to stay alive. Another casualty of the shutdown is America’s woefully understaffed airports, which are now seeing flights reverted, grounded, and outright canceled across the country.
The San Francisco International Airport (SFO) is one of the dozen American airports affected by the government shutdown-caused understaffing.
As of publishing, a total of 48 flights have been cancelled at the international airport, the vast majority being domestic flights; flights managed by Skywest and United collectively make up 32 of the 48 canceled flights. Dozens of flights were grounded on the SFO tarmac by Air Traffic Control. Nearly 180 flights — 177, to be exact — are experiencing significant delays. 165 canceled flights and 900 delays have been recorded, thus far, today.
Current TSA wait times for SFO are, unsurprisingly, trending above average; travelers can expect to wait more than 40 minutes to get through airport security, nearly twice as long as it usually would.
Major airlines have taken it upon themselves to alert travelers of possible travel delays well in advance of normal airport arrival times to quell anxieties.
“I think people are anxious right now, and this is one of the reasons why we wanted to do this,” Lori Augustine, vice president for United Airlines airport operations at SFO, told the San Francisco Chronicle earlier today amid the hoopla. “We’re here for you,” she adds.
Without an end to the shutdown in sight, Republicans and Democrats remain at a stalemate; the former party has noted the “wheels came off” in regard to negotiations between the latter amid proposed budget cuts to welfare programs. Delays, cancellations, and grounding are expected to continue, perhaps into the Thanksgiving holiday.
Feature image: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
