statemen<\/a>t. \u201cIt\u2019s safe to fly today, and it will continue to be safe to fly next week because of the proactive actions we are taking.\u201d <\/p>\nPressed Friday about the impacts, Duffy told CBS : \u201cIf people want to question us, I would throw it back at them: Open up the government. We have to take unprecedented action because we are in an unprecedented situation with the shutdown.\u201d<\/p>\n
The decision to cut flights intensified the tension between Republicans and Democrats at the nation\u2019s capital. Washington Rep. Rick Larsen, the top Democrat on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, questioned whether safety was the key motivation in the decision to cut flights, calling it an \u201cunprecedented step that demands more transparency.\u201d <\/p>\n
The cuts could affect about 1,800 flights and 268,000 passengers in the U.S. a day, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. About 72 flights a day could be cut at LAX, affecting 12,371 passengers. An additional 105 flights could be canceled at the four other California airports targeted for reductions, Cirium estimated. <\/p>\n
For travelers, uncertainty over whether their flights will be affected has left them in limbo. <\/p>\n
There was no way Kathryn McMiller of Seal Beach was going to risk being stranded because of flight cancellations, so she opted to postpone her trip this month to visit her brother and sister-in-law in Orlando until January. <\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t so much getting there that she was concerned about, the 69-year-old said, but the potential that her trip home might be delayed because of the lingering shutdown. <\/p>\n
She decided to cancel her Southwest flight Tuesday, days before the news of the looming flight reductions. <\/p>\n
\u201cI absolutely have to be back on Dec. 3 and I\u2019m concerned this government shutdown is going to go really long,\u201d McMiller said. \u201cI could just imagine being stuck with all these people and having to try to track down a hotel. It\u2019s not worth it.\u201d <\/p>\n
Leslie Nash of Long Beach waited as long as she could before calling off her 60th-birthday trip to Hawaii with her sisters; she was forced to cancel Thursday or risk losing refunds for her hotel room and rental car. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a total first-world problem on my end,\u201d she said. \u201cI can always reschedule, but it just sucks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Faced with the government shutdown, the immigration raids in Southern California, the general polarization of American politics and now the travel setbacks, \u201cpeople are just fed up,\u201d Nash said. \u201cCan we have any joy?\u201d<\/p>\n
At LAX on Thursday, the terminals that house Delta and American airlines were bustling as usual, with travelers grateful to be jetting off before the reductions hit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re getting out of Dodge before it gets a lot worse,\u201d Dale Eckerman, 85, said as he sat with his wife, Paula Carroll, near the American Airlines check-in. <\/p>\n
Eckerman and Carroll, 75, benefited from good, old-fashioned luck as they picked the dates and departure times for their annual trip to visit their son in Los Angeles. Although some flights into Boston were experiencing minor delays Thursday, their flight was proceeding as scheduled. <\/p>\n
Had they decided to travel back to Cape Cod \u2014 their home for the last 15 years \u2014 on Friday, their travel experience might have looked different, Carroll said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe got lucky,\u201d Carroll said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have to change our plans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stephanie Sanchez, 28, and her husband, Dan, were getting ready to head to security after arriving at LAX on Thursday morning excited to start their vacation, a rare couple\u2019s trip to Miami without their 3- and 6-year-old daughters.<\/p>\n
They didn\u2019t expect any delays, but their flight home Monday might be a different story, they said.<\/p>\n
American Airlines sent them an email alerting them of the FAA directive to reduce flight schedules, but the airline noted that it expected \u201cthe vast majority of our customers\u2019 travel will be unaffected.\u201d <\/p>\n
Customers whose flights are canceled will be able to change their flight or request a refund without any penalty, according to the airline. United also announced any customer traveling during the flight reduction is eligible for a refund if they decide not to fly, even if their flight isn\u2019t affected. <\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully we\u2019re good now, and we\u2019ll see how it is on the way back,\u201d Stephanie Sanchez said. \u201cFingers crossed.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sandra Pleites has been looking forward to visiting her sister for months, trading in the crisp New Jersey…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":362542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[53501,175844,1582,276,2385,19032,175842,175840,49089,2961,35930,224,5337,175841,53504,175843,53794,2450,57647,9269],"class_list":{"0":"post-362541","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-airline","9":"tag-airport-chaos","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-day","13":"tag-flight","14":"tag-flight-cut","15":"tag-full-flight-reduction","16":"tag-government-shutdown","17":"tag-la","18":"tag-lax","19":"tag-los-angeles","20":"tag-losangeles","21":"tag-other-traveler","22":"tag-passenger","23":"tag-paula-carroll","24":"tag-rental-car","25":"tag-thursday","26":"tag-travel-safety","27":"tag-trip"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}