Ahead of what the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) predicts will be the busiest travel day of the record-setting July 4 holiday weekend, U.S. Travel Association Executive Vice President of Public Affairs and Policy Tori Emerson Barnes issued the following statement on the urgent need for Congress to address FAA staffing and funding shortages through the agency’s reauthorization bill:  

“U.S. airlines have hired more than 55,000 new workers since 2022 to help stave off delays, yet we need an act of Congress and FAA policy changes just to hire 1,800 air traffic controllers per year and ensure they are staffed in the right places. This is unacceptable, and Congress and the FAA must move faster. 

“The freedom to travel is critical to our country’s economy, but these staffing shortages and inefficiencies put unnecessary strain on the air travel system. The tremendous demand we anticipate this weekend—which drives travel spending in every region of the country—should spur Congress to work quickly to finalize an FAA reauthorization bill that will make our air travel system more modern, efficient and secure for decades to come.” 

Hundreds of thousands of US airline customers were stranded this week as severe weather grounded planes and led to canceled flights. But storms were only one factor behind the travel nightmare. Staffing shortages, at both US airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration’s air traffic control operations, took a bad situation and made it worse.

The situation at US airports was only slightly better Wednesday. As of 2:44 pm ET, FlightAware tracking service reported there were nearly 850 flights canceled and another 3,500 delays. Storms in the Boston area caused a groundstop there early Wednesday and New York’s LaGuardia and Newark airports had a groundstop in the afternoon, keeping planes destined for those locations at the gate or parked on the tarmac at airports around the country.

Although that’s better than the 2,200 canceled flights in each of the last two days, or the more than 16,000 delayed flights between Monday and Tuesday, it’s hardly a smooth-running operation.