Austin-Bergstrom International Airport has so far dodged the worst of flight delays caused by the federal government shutdown, even though travelers may still face long waits if destination airports are coping with understaffed control towers.
But veterans of air traffic control warn the relative calm may not last, with controllers in Austin's chronically short-staffed tower now facing new tests of their financial and psychological endurance.
Austin's tower is operating with about half as many controllers as recommended by targets set by the Federal Aviation Administration and the controllers' union. Controllers have been toiling for months under mandatory overtime rules, rotating through mornings, afternoons and overnight shifts six days a week.
This week was the first time since the government shutdown began Oct. 1 that those controllers received nothing on their bi-weekly paychecks.
"There is never going to be a day an air traffic controller is going to walk off the job," said Velvet Kennedy, a former air traffic controller and FAA safety official who moved to Leander after retiring in 2021.
"We believe in our job, and we'll work ourselves to death to do it," Kennedy said. "We know our families are on those airplanes."
But going weeks without pay, she said, puts controllers in precarious financial situations, which adds stress to an already demanding job. During the last government shutdown, Kennedy wound up loaning coworkers money until their checks finally came through.
"We were supposed to take action if we found out one of our employees had taken a part-time job," she said. "How do you do that to another human being when they've got kids to feed?"
Because of how the FAA classifies facilities, controllers in Austin live in one of the most expensive areas of Texas while earning significantly less than counterparts in more affordable cities.
The agency recently denied a request to reclassify Austin's airport as a busier facility, a change that would have triggered an automatic 25% pay hike for controllers.
Steve Bono, a former air traffic controller who recently retired from Fort Worth after four decades, said there's a sense of shared hardship when all your coworkers are suffering through the same thing.
"It's not a good feeling by any means," Bono said of working through past government shutdowns. "I knew that I wasn't in this boat all alone. ... I just went to work, and I just did what I had to do. And that was it."
Bono remembered colleagues maxing out credit cards just to cover basic expenses.
"We've got to buy food, groceries," he said. "We've got to buy diapers. We've got to buy formula. So all that's on the back of your mind, and you're just charging your credit card and keep building that up. It's not comfortable."
Control towers at larger hub airports have more traffic but also a deeper bench when someone calls in sick, said Sheldon H. Jacobson, a University of Illinois professor who studies aviation systems. He said Austin's shortage makes it especially vulnerable if the shutdown drags on.
"It starts to bend. It doesn't break, it bends," Jacobson said. "In the extreme situation, if you don't have enough people who can handle the volume on a given day or even in a given hour, you have to delay flights. And in the worst case scenario, they have to be canceled."
City officials who operate the publicly owned airport have little control over the federal employees who screen passengers or direct planes in the sky. Except for a brief ground delay on the evening of Oct. 13, the city says ABIA has experienced few disruptions — even on the Monday after the U.S. Grand Prix, the busiest day in the airport's history.
ABIA spokesperson Sydney Edwards said travelers should still arrive at least two and a half hours before domestic departures and three hours for international flights. The blanket advice is in case crowds are large or agents with the Transportation Security Administration call in sick. The lines are usually longest before 8 a.m., an airport spokesperson said.
As of Thursday afternoon, 46 of 222 departing flights were delayed, according to the airport's departures board. Delays ranged from four minutes to about four hours.
But the FAA's airspace status site indicated most of the delays were caused by bad weather, including heavy crosswinds at Newark International Airport forcing planes to abort landings.
"The biggest thing I really want people to understand about air traffic controllers is the amount of care and pride we have in this career," Kennedy said. "We do it because we love it, and we have a natural instinct for it."
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