By Joseph Lord and Aldgra Fredly
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will terminate its standing order to reduce flights out of U.S. airports on Nov. 17 as the country moves to return to normal air traffic in the aftermath of the government shutdown.
The flight reduction emergency order is set to expire at 6 a.m. on Nov. 17, enabling normal operations to resume across the National Airspace System, according to the federal agency.
The order had been put in place due to air traffic control staffing shortages that arose as a result of the 43-day government shutdown. Many air traffic controllers who weren’t receiving pay during the shutdown had begun to skip work, leading to staffing shortages which required a reduction in air traffic.
The FAA said that it had determined that these conditions had improved enough to permit a return to normal air traffic, following its review of safety trends at air traffic control facilities.
The agency said it observed a “steady decline” in staffing-trigger events at air traffic control facilities after the government shutdown ended, with six staffing triggers being reported on Nov. 14, eight on Nov. 15, and only one on Nov. 16—indicating a significant improvement from the previous 81 staffing triggers on Nov. 8.
“Today’s decision to rescind the order reflects the steady decline in staffing concerns across the NAS and allows us to return to normal operations,” FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said in a statement.
Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy said the FAA can now redirect its efforts to “surging controller hiring and building the brand new, state of the art air traffic control system the American people deserve.”
“I want to thank the FAA’s dedicated safety team for keeping our skies secure during the longest government shutdown in our nation’s history and the country’s patience for putting safety first,” Duffy stated.
The FAA said it will lift restrictions on general aviation operations at 12 airports, some visual flight rule approaches, commercial space launches, as well as parachute operations and photo missions near facilities that saw staffing triggers.
The agency also said it is reviewing reports of “non-compliance by carriers over the course of the emergency order,” but offered no further details.
More than 1,800 U.S. flights were either delayed or canceled on Nov. 13, just hours after the government shutdown ended, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware. By 11 a.m. ET that day, about 996 flights were canceled and 906 were delayed.
This came after President Donald Trump on Nov. 12 signed into law a congressional package to reopen the government until Jan. 30, 2026, which ended a more than one-month government shutdown.
Jack Phillips contributed to this report.
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