FAA Keeps Shutdown Flight Cuts At 6 Percent

Flight reductions at 40 of the busiest airports in the United States will remain capped at 6 percent instead of increasing to 10 percent, after transportation officials reported that more air traffic controllers are returning to work. The decision comes just as Congress approved a funding bill that ended the 43 day government shutdown on November 12, 2025, the longest such closure in U S history, and only about two weeks before the peak Thanksgiving travel period.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the Federal Aviation Administration, FAA, will keep the 6 percent ceiling in place while its safety team evaluates whether the system can handle more flights without increasing risk. The original plan called for gradually tightening capacity from 4 percent up to 10 percent at the same 40 airports, a move that had already forced airlines to cut hundreds of flights per day.

FAA Flight Cuts And Shutdown Context

The shutdown began on October 1, 2025, and stretched for 43 days, leaving roughly 900,000 federal workers furloughed and forcing essential staff, including about 13,000 air traffic controllers and 50,000 Transportation Security Administration workers, to report to work without pay. Many controllers cited stress, fatigue and the need to take second jobs as reasons for calling out, which triggered chronic staffing shortfalls at key facilities even before the formal flight reduction order took effect.

As the shutdown dragged on, the Department of Transportation and the FAA moved from warning about disruptions to actively ordering cuts in airspace capacity at major hubs. Reuters reporting shows that regulators had been prepared to drive overall traffic down by as much as 10 percent at the 40 largest airports, which together handle tens of thousands of flights per day and millions of passengers.

Background, When the FAA orders flight reductions, it is effectively lowering the number of takeoffs and landings that can be scheduled at each affected airport. Airlines must then trim frequencies, swap to smaller aircraft, or cancel flights outright to comply with the cap, which can quickly cascade through their networks and disrupt aircraft rotations and crew assignments far beyond the specific airports on the FAA list.

Latest Developments

According to the Associated Press, more air traffic controllers have begun returning to duty in recent days, prompting the FAA safety team to recommend holding at 6 percent rather than climbing to the previously signaled 10 percent ceiling. Duffy said there is no formal timeline for restoring normal operations, but he framed the current limit as a temporary measure that will be lifted once staffing and safety indicators clearly improve.

Since the restrictions took effect last Friday, more than 10,100 flights have been canceled, based on data from flight tracking service FlightAware. That figure reflects both the mandated capacity cuts and additional disruptions tied to off schedule crews, aircraft that are out of position, and bouts of poor weather. The FAA has said that "concerning" safety data, including more instances of aircraft coming too close together in the air and an uptick in runway incursions, justified acting before those trends worsened.

Duffy and FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford have repeatedly stressed that safety is the primary driver of the policy, even as they have refused to release the underlying data publicly. At a news conference at Chicago O'Hare International Airport, they cited pilot reports about controller performance, and said decisions are being guided by internal metrics rather than political pressure or airline lobbying. The agency has also signaled that if staffing were to deteriorate again, further restrictions on business aviation and other noncommercial flying could follow.

Airlines are trying to put a more optimistic face on the situation. Delta says it expects to restore its operation to full capacity "over the next few days" if trends hold, while other major carriers are also working to rebuild schedules that were planned months in advance but scrambled in less than a week. Trade group Airlines for America has thanked lawmakers for ending the shutdown and says reopening the government is the necessary first step toward stabilizing the aviation system ahead of Thanksgiving.

Analysis

Operationally, airlines now face a complex recovery. They must reposition aircraft that were rerouted or grounded during the height of the cuts, rebuild crew pairings and rotations that comply with duty time limits, and re synchronize hub banks so that connections once again line up. Industry analysts and academics, including risk management experts like Case Western Reserve's Eric Chaffee, note that these tasks are intricate even in normal times, and that a sudden system wide capacity squeeze forces carriers into reactive, short term decisions that may take days to unwind.

For travelers, that means the end of the shutdown and the decision to hold flight cuts at 6 percent, while positive, will not instantly reset the system. Residual disruptions are likely to persist for several days, especially at high traffic hubs like New York, Chicago, Atlanta and Los Angeles that sit at the center of airline networks and bear the brunt of any FAA capacity cap. Missed connections and rolling delays are still a risk even on flights that are not formally canceled.

In the near term, the most practical steps for passengers are tactical. Travelers with upcoming trips through one of the affected hubs should monitor airline apps frequently, build in extra time for connections, and consider moving to earlier departures if their plans are tied to fixed events, especially in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. Flexible travelers might benefit from off peak departures or alternative routings that avoid the busiest banks at constrained airports.

The shutdown has also exposed bigger structural issues in U S aviation. The FAA entered this period with a significant shortfall in fully certified controllers and a reliance on mandatory overtime at some facilities. Duffy has already pledged to accelerate hiring and training to close that gap, but those changes will take years, not weeks, to translate into staffing resilience, and the events of the past month have re energized calls to treat air traffic control and airport security personnel differently in any future funding standoff.

Industry associations are sharpening that message. The U S Travel Association argues that essential federal workers like controllers and Transportation Security Administration staff must continue to be paid even if Congress allows government funding to lapse again, framing the latest episode as a self inflicted crisis that threatened systems millions of people rely on every day. Airlines and hotel groups, which warned of potential holiday travel chaos while the shutdown was still unresolved, are likely to keep pressing lawmakers for more durable protections.

Final thoughts

The decision to freeze shutdown related flight cuts at 6 percent instead of escalating to 10 percent prevents a worst case scenario for U S air travel, but it does not erase the disruption already felt by hundreds of thousands of travelers. With more than 10,000 flights canceled in less than a week, the system will need time to recover, and the coming Thanksgiving rush will test how quickly airlines can translate improving controller staffing into more reliable schedules.

For now, travelers should plan conservatively, stay close to their airline communications and avoid assuming that the end of the shutdown means an immediate return to normal. The story of these flight cuts is no longer about whether planes can fly, but about how long it will take to rebuild trust in an aviation system that proved more fragile than many expected once its essential workers stopped getting paid.

Sources

• FAA says flight cuts will stay at 6% because more air traffic controllers are coming to work
• Exclusive, US orders 10% flights cut at major US airports due to shutdown
• US freezes shutdown flight cuts at 6% on positive staffing signs
• 2025 United States federal government shutdown