How a government shutdown could impact your travel plans
MINNEAPOLIS -- Despite enjoying their time in the Twin Cities, travelers at MSP Airport say they're happy to be leaving.
The looming government shutdown has them feeling as though they're getting out just in the nick of time.
"We're heading home right now," Craig Cathcart said. "But if the shutdown goes through, and you don't have the right people here to get you where you need to go, you're in a lot of trouble."
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"I would be very concerned if I wasn't leaving tonight," Anna Walker said. "After the October one, if it really does shut down, it's going to turn into such a zoo, just trying to get people in and out, there's going to be so many disruptions. And the air traffic system already is disrupted enough."
This week, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg warned a shutdown would cause a setback for the air travel system, which just stabilized from the post-pandemic travel boom.
"It would mean we would immediately have to stop training new air traffic controllers and furlough the other 1,000 controllers who are already in the training pipeline," Buttigieg said. "Even a shutdown lasting a few days could mean we will not hit our staffing and hiring targets next year."
But a shutdown would have an even more immediate impact on TSA agents and air traffic controllers.
"Quite frankly, if I was FAA, or TSA, or the police department, or the railroad department, or Amtrak or anybody else — okay, government shutdown we're stopping stop the trucks, stop the train, stop the planes. You want to shut the government down? Okay we will," Walker said.
The fear is those air traffic controllers and TSA agents could stop showing up to work if they're not getting paid.
WCCO talked to an agent at MSP who said agents have already started looking into driving Uber or delivering with Doordash to keep money coming in while the government is shut down.