‘Going to get worse’: US transport secretary's ‘Thanksgiving’ warning over air travel amid govt shutdown

US ship secretarial assistant Sean Duffy on lord's day warned that a “ substantive” list of Americans will not be able to celebrate Thanksgiving with their families as air travel could be “reduced to a trickle” due to the prolonged government shutdown.

In an interview with CNN, Duffy said that the already reduced air traffic will only worsen.

"It's only going to get worse... Two weeks before Thanksgiving, you're going to see air travel be reduced to a trickle," Duffy said.

Asked if he had any sort of numerical idea of how many Americans would not be able to be with their families for the holidays, the transportation secretary said the number was “going to be substantial." He solely blamed the Democrats for the fiasco.

"Yesterday, we had 81 staffing triggers with air traffic controllers across the airspace... That trendline is getting worse. More controllers aren't coming to work day by day, the further they go without a paycheck — because Democrats refuse to pay them," he said.

Duffy claimed that while President Donald Trump's Republican Party was in favour of ending the shutdown, now the longest in US history, the Democratic Party has kept the government shutdown going.

"We have done all we can to make sure we minimise disruption, that we keep the airspace safe... There's only one side that has voted every single time—14 times—to keep the government shut down. It's only Republicans who have voted to open it up," Duffy said in a separate interview with Fox News.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) instructed airlines to reduce 4% of daily flights starting Friday at 40 major airports due to air traffic control safety concerns. The shutdown has led to shortages of air traffic controllers who, like other federal employees, have not been paid for weeks.

Reductions in flights are mandated to reach 6% by Tuesday and then increase to 10% by November 14.

The US government shutdown has reached a record 40 days. Democratic leaders are pushing hard for an extension of subsidies for health plans offered under the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

Republicans have rejected that offer, but signalled openness to an emerging proposal from a small group of moderate Democrats to end the shutdown in exchange for a later vote on the “Obamacare” subsidies that make coverage more affordable.

For those enrolled in health exchanges under that law, premiums are expected to more than double on average next year if Congress allows the enhanced subsidies to lapse.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said the pledge to hold a vote on extending the subsidies would be a “wasteful gesture” unless “you have the commitment of the speaker of the House that he will support it and that the president of the United States will sign it.”

President Donald Trump has made it clear that he is unlikely to compromise anytime soon. On Sunday, he pressed Republicans once more to abolish the Senate's filibuster rules, which prevent the chamber from advancing most legislation unless there is support from at least 60 senators.

“Be the Smart Party,” he said in a social media post.

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