Erica Siaulnski, Staff Writer
The government shutdown affected more in the average American’s everyday life than anyone could have predicted. Many federally funded programs that were used by so many Americans were suddenly halted, and it was unclear as to when or how anything would return to normal. Starting on the first of October in 2025, which was planned to continue indefinitely, or until January 1st 2026, when the funding for the year would renew itself and begin again. The federal government officially reopened on November 12th, 2025, making this the longest federal shutdown.
The shutdown occurred over a disagreement between Republicans and Democrats on health care and the funding surrounding it. This dispute was unresolved by the time voting on the issue came around, and so after meeting no compromise, the government shut down.
While people feared their SNAP and WIC benefits being taken away, and federal businesses and employees were without pay for an indefinite amount of time, one thing that many people failed to think of as being affected by the shutdown was air travel. Multiple federal services, such as the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT), subsidize money to airlines that fly around the country, or the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which offers a decent amount of money to airlines to travel throughout the world. But unfortunately, with the shutdown, this led to a cutoff of this money and led multiple airlines to lay off employees (such as TSA), reduce the number of planes in service at once, and ultimately led to countless delays and cancellations of flights across the country. Towards the end of October, delays were coming close to about 7,000 a day, if not more.
When the government reopened, travellers were thrilled to hear the news. After weeks of frustration with cancellations and delays, the airlines would be back to normal. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the case. With the growing demand for flights come the holiday season, and travel picking back up with so many people back to work, airlines are just as delayed as before.
Many airlines, such as American Airlines, released statements like this one after the difficult and frustrating time that travelers had, while also warning of what happened to employees during the time of the shutdown. “After 43 days, American Airlines is pleased that the longest government shutdown in U.S. history has ended. The shutdown led to widespread delays and cancellations across the country, in addition to FAA-required cancellations, because federal aviation professionals were not being paid. This impacted hundreds of thousands of our customers.”
While the time was challenging, many are glad that the confusing, frightening days of the shutdown are over, and hopefully, life will be able to get back to normal at some point very soon.
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