The just-concluded government shutdown, the longest in American history, forced already stressed air traffic controllers to work without pay on a job with zero room for error. Not surprisingly, that led a lot of ATCs to not show up for work, leading to a number of shortages that eventually forced the Federal Aviation Administration to cut 10% of flights. This has all convinced bipartisan members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee that, hey, maybe, we should pay them during a shutdown. They have introduced a bill that would keep cutting paychecks during future lapses in funding, at least for a while.
The proposal is to tap into the Aviation Insurance Revolving Fund, which is the federal government’s method of paying out damage claims for commercial aircraft that it insures. As AP News reports, this fund currently has about $2.6 billion in it, so it ought to be able to cover a few ATC pay cycles if necessary. That said, the bill would stop pulling money out of the fund if it ever dipped below $1 billion, so it is a band aid, not a solution.
This isn’t the first government shutdown during a Trump administration to raise this issue: a bill coming off the heels of the 2019 funding lapse also wanted to keep ATCs paid, although that and similar proposals would have taken the money from the Airport & Airway Trust Fund, which is how the government pays for airport, spaceport, and ATC upgrades. None of them made it to law. This new bill doesn’t have much time to become one, either: unless Congress actually passes a budget, the government will shut down again in January.
Wait, the federal government insures planes?
The Aviation Insurance Program is there to handle two scenarios: providing insurance to airlines when private insurers won’t (like after 9/11), and paying out any damages to commercial aircraft under military use. The latter relates to the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, in which commercial airlines get juicy military cargo contracts in exchange for allowing the Pentagon to use their planes for emergency surge capacity. The last time this was used was during the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, when America-friendly Afghans were exfiltrated in huge numbers. In the event that a plane gets damaged in the process, the government will pay the bill.
This sort of thing doesn’t exactly happen very often, so for the moment its $2.6 billion fund is just sitting there collecting interest. Possibly, that makes this bill more politically feasible than the previous attempts, since they were taking money from actively used maintenance funds. It is a very different use for the money than its original intention, however.
Doing right by ATCs for the last shutdown, sort of
In the meantime, what about the poor ATCs who just suffered their way through the longest shutdown in history? Well, they are receiving backpay, which is good. On top of that, the Trump administration has just announced that it will award $10,000 bonuses to every ATC who had a perfect attendance record during that time, per CNBC. That’s nice… but also a little strange. If someone missed one day of work because they had a cold, that just became a $10,000 cough. Harsh. It also penalizes anyone who had to take some side jobs to make ends meet.
But neither bonuses nor bills address the ongoing problem of ATC staff shortages, which has been growing worse for decades now. The solution is probably either to increase wages or hire qualified immigrants to do important work for the benefit of all Americans. Until that happens (and I wouldn’t hold my breath), even a funded government is going to keep seeing issues with flights.
