Ground stop at JFK due to staffing

https://www.fly.faa.gov/adv/adv_otherdis?advn=13&adv_date=10312025&facId=JFK&title=ATCSCC%20ADVZY%20013%20JFK/ZNY%2010/31/2025%20CDM%20GROUND%20STOP&titleDate=10/31/2025

by akersten • 9 months ago

203 259 9 months ago

fly.faa.gov

slater• 9 months ago

Get Kennedy Steve back in there!

bragr• 9 months ago

I think even Kennedy Steve wouldn't do it just for the love of the game. At this point you have to figure a lot of the people calling out "sick" are just doing it so they can Uber or door dash or something like that to come up with money for a car payment or rent/mortgage.

shadowgovt3• 9 months ago

Also, tomorrow's Halloween and folks have kids.

Time to put the finishing touches on the costumes and carve the last pumpkins.

sgloutnikov• 9 months ago

Kennedy Steve is a legend, loved listening to JFK when he was on. Here's an interview with him for the fans if they have missed it [0].

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1cKfZatlQ4

matmo• 9 months ago

What does this actually mean? All flights around JFK are cancelled until further notice? Can someone translate? Does this affect EWR and LGA?

otterley2• 9 months ago

Any flights that are to depart for JFK but are still on the ground must stay put until the expiration or cancellation of the stop. No, it doesn’t impact other airports.

CamperBob2• 9 months ago

Any disruption at one major airport affects pretty much all the airports, if it lasts long enough. Those grounded planes will soon be expected elsewhere.

delfinom2• 9 months ago

Flights are delayed, however since planes are choreographed by airlines for maximum utilization, long enough delays and you will see mass cancellations, potentially across large swaths of the country.

i.e. a plane for one route might go between various different cities in 24 hours, with different crew each time of course before it gets back to the first route.

andreybaskov• 9 months ago

I once landed a GA airplane in a very busy uncontrolled class C airport that closed its tower at 4pm due to staff shortage, but was still operational. Since then I have a tremendous respect for aviation resilience to any single point failure. I imaging having entire JFK on CTAF isn't an option though.

chris_va• 9 months ago

This is Alaska 37, wings up turning base over Coney Island...

johncolanduoni9• 9 months ago

The things that are and aren’t considered essential enough to fund during a government shutdown are insane. Is this enshrined in a statute somewhere? Feels like adding air traffic controllers to that list should be a no-brainer (and broadly politically popular).

CGamesPlay• 9 months ago

Isn't the point of the government shutdown to be painful? It's a self-imposed failure condition, we could "optimize" it by removing the shutdown entirely.

evilduck3• 9 months ago

Agreed, but the people who can legislate away shutdowns are the same ones who are currently using shutdowns as a political tool. There's no chance the current climate would do that.

Sabinus• 9 months ago

Many parliamentary systems dissolve the government if they fail to pass a budget. "Can't run the country, time for an election. "

gruez2• 9 months ago

Is this enshrined in a statute somewhere? Feels like adding air traffic controllers to that list should be a no-brainer (and broadly politically popular).

They are considered essential. That means they have to work, but not be paid.

https://time.com/7329683/government-shutdown-flight-delays-c...

johncolanduoni9• 9 months ago

But it seems like certain jobs are funded for the duration anyway (infamously, members of Congress are one). Who would argue that air traffic controllers shouldn’t be on that rarefied list?

shadowgovt3• 9 months ago

So what happens if they don't show up? Are they at risk of jail or at risk of being fired and replaced by the new recruit, Michael McDoesnt-Exist (https://www.aviationtoday.com/2025/07/25/americas-atc-meltdo...)?

o11c3• 9 months ago

Today in "blatant constitutional violations specified by law" ...

wbl• 9 months ago

Shutdowns used to not exist because Congress would authorize the President to spend at existing levels (but not the army, for reasons). This changed in the 1970s.

gruez2• 9 months ago

Source? Wikipedia contradicts you.

Before 1917, the U.S. had no debt ceiling. Congress either authorized specific loans or allowed the Treasury to issue certain debt instruments and individual debt issues for specific purposes. Sometimes Congress gave the Treasury discretion over what type of debt instrument would be issued.[25] The United States first instituted a statutory debt limit with the Second Liberty Bond Act of 1917. This legislation set limits on the aggregate amount of debt that could be accumulated through individual categories of debt (such as bonds and bills). In 1939, Congress instituted the first limit on total accumulated debt over all kinds of instruments.[26][27]
In 1953, the U.S. Treasury risked reaching the debt ceiling of $275 billion. Though President Eisenhower requested that Congress increase it on July 30, 1953, the Senate refused to act on it. As a result, the president asked federal agencies to reduce how much they spent, plus the Treasury Department used its cash balances with banks to stay under the debt ceiling. And, starting in November 1953, Treasury monetized close to $1 billion of gold left over in its vaults, which helped keep it from exceeding the $275 billion limit. During spring and summer 1954, the Senate and the executive branch negotiated on a debt ceiling increase, and a $6 billion one was passed on August 28, 1954.[28]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_debt_ceiling#Leg...

crm91253• 9 months ago

Meh, flying is a luxury. We can all stay put until the government pulls its head out of its ass.

Zagitta2• 9 months ago

Planes transport more things than people, like organs for transplants. Are those a luxury too?

johncolanduoni9• 9 months ago

Not if you want the economy to keep functioning. A lot of people doing real work (e.g. engineers flying out to fix medical devices) rely on air travel.

evilduck3• 9 months ago

Air cargo is also going to be impacted.

nocoiner2• 9 months ago

Lots of things enshrined in statute (appropriations, prohibitions on impoundment, the name of the Department of Defense) have been disregarded in this year of our lord 2025.

wvenable• 9 months ago

What's insane is just accepting that government shutdown is a thing. Determining what is and is not essentially is just splitting hairs.

apothegm• 9 months ago

Is this due to funding and government shutdown? Or just people unable to make it to work due to severe flooding?

delfinom2• 9 months ago

Probably both tbh. I'm sure they are less motivated to deal with today's torrential downpour with no pay.

subscribed• 9 months ago

Probably stressed out people aren't so keen to work for free.

https://youtu.be/YeABJbvcJ_k

yndoendo• 9 months ago

Who knew electing shitty representation leads to a shitty environment and economy? I wish those effected by the shitty government the best

Forcing people to work and not pay them is slavery!

tombert6• 9 months ago

I got in trouble at a BigCo because I said "we all do this for the money", and they claimed that I had a "bad attitude".

But I don't think I was wrong. Work is fundamentally a business transaction; I sell my time and expertise and they give me money and benefits. Ultimately for any job I've had, even jobs that I really loved, if they stopped paying me I'd stop showing up [1]. It's nothing personal, that's just the transaction that I agreed to.

If I had some bloviating wannabe-demagogue telling me that I should keep working and to not expect backpay, I am quite confident that I would quit, or at least keep calling in sick. I am not going to blame anyone who would do the same. I have no fucking idea why half the country voted for this.

[1] This has actually been tested for one job.

imperfect_light• 9 months ago

You should ask BigCo if they're only providing goods/services to their customers "for the money."

john_moscow• 9 months ago

Surviving at BigCo is all about saying one thing, and often doing quite the opposite to advance your career.

If you don't like it, working at a BigCo could be quite soul-draining.

johnfn4• 9 months ago

I mean, if I heard you say that, I would probably think you had a "bad attitude" as well. Yes, getting paid is an important part of your job, but presumably you could get paid at many different places, and you choose the one you work at because it has additional benefits on top of a purely transactional relationship.

It's like telling your girlfriend you're dating her because she's really hot. I'm sure that factored in, but she might get annoyed if that's the only reason you can come up with.

deepsun2• 9 months ago

It's not just wrong, if a company is registered as "commercial" (as opposed to non-profit or public-benefit), then "for the money" is a legal obligation.

Shareholders can literally sue the management if they don't pursue the obligation.

kumarvvr• 9 months ago

"we all do this for the money"

BigCo

To Investors : We are in it for money. We will earn you money. It is money we dream, covet and will go to any lengths for. Ethics, Integrity, Truth, all those don't matter in the long term.

To Society : We do CSR, we are a good for society, we are ethical, we have integrity, we value society, we care much more than just money.

To Employees : We are family, if one of us is hurt everyone is hurt, we believe in work-life balance, we believe in fairness, equality, openness, transparency.

BigCo is a liar and a hypocrite.

hshdhdhehd5• 9 months ago

Bad attitude != incorrect, of course.

Actually good attitude often == not honest.

ndsipa_pomu2• 9 months ago

If they don't do it for the money, then presumably the execs won't mind if you swap your pay package with theirs.

mancerayder• 9 months ago

But I don't think I was wrong. Work is fundamentally a business transaction; I sell my time and expertise and they give me money and benefits.

On the one hand, I've been saying this for two decades, in small and large cos. I've never been promoted in title, but I've also never been fired and generally been given more and more people to manage. I'm too direct and honest, but as I got older I learned to own it and do it smoothly without disrupting too much.

But the 'consultant mentality' helps me maintain my sanity, sleep a little better at night and never get married to a company. I wish I put my money where my mouth is, though, because peers who move every 2-3 years make significantly more than me despite being more junior.

On the one hand, the FounderSpeak about internalizing the job, loving what you do, and work life balance being bad business nauseates me... On the other hand, some of my high performing workaholic friends are not only richer than me, they seem like they're more purpose driven in their lives as their corporate jobs give meaning it doesn't give me.

It seems then that, for me, self-honesty and work life separation achieve less satisfaction and a lot less pay (and perhaps delayed early retirement).

cogman102• 9 months ago

We almost certainly could have floated through this had Reagan not gutted the ATC union (while firing a huge amount of staff) with congress neutering their negotiation power.

We never really fully recovered from that. We took away the power of employees in a high stress job to voice their concerns and needs which, as a result, made the job extra hard to hire for.

SlightlyLeftPad2• 9 months ago

It is a failed state, and we have seemingly overnight given Russia and China the biggest beautiful gift they could have asked for.

Our military is over extended, science has been flipped over and defunded, and that alone will settle it.

Now add unreasonable volatility from tariffs, and wait, give it time, wait some more until it’s impossible to unwind, then if we’re not in a major war, economy crashes, chaos ensues.

collingreen5• 9 months ago

Mix in telling people the news is the enemy of the state and everything bad is because of their neighbors and you have quite a lot of opportunity for chaos.

dang• 9 months ago

I know many people have reason to be frustrated, but please don't post like this to HN. It's not what the site is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

sigmar2• 9 months ago

anyone have any apps they use to follow FAA ground stops? maybe I'll put a link to https://nasstatus.faa.gov/ on my phone

crm91253• 9 months ago

Makes sense. Why would ATC go to work when their employer says they won't get paid?

Until UBI is a thing, they (necessarily) need to be very cognizant of where they spend their time in relation to where they make their money.

Republicans should propose a reasonable solution that will get the votes to pass, otherwise, this will continue.

ipython2• 9 months ago

My concern is that we will end up in a state of perpetual government "shutdown". The republicans, instead of reopening the entire government, will simply choose agencies to fund in order to keep the pain felt by the American people just low enough so they don't get fired (ala office space).

Once that happens, Congress has basically iced itself out. Oversight from unfriendly government agencies? No worries, they're shut down because they're unpaid. And clearly this demonstrates the executive needs more power, since Congress is completely frozen. Finally, the Supreme Court is no longer an issue either, since that's not funded either.

Someone tell me why this couldn't happen.

ares623• 9 months ago

Speed running to become an actual developing nation. This is what millions of migrants are trying to escape from. Ironic, for all parties involved (well, except for the ones on top of course)

donmcronald• 9 months ago

Speed running to become an actual developing nation.

That's what it looks like from the outside, but I can't understand what the gain is. Who benefits? The result of the middle class was massive advancement and an equally massive increase in standard of living for the wealthy who captured most of the gains.

What do they gain from stagnating innovation and a lack of education, services, etc.?

It makes me think of the old Olympic and sports videos. The participants basically suck because they're coming from a small pool of people wealthy enough to not need a job. Do they really want the pool of candidates competing to become doctors, etc. to be smaller which will end up lowering the overall quality for them?

Or do they think they'll simply hire the best and brightest from other countries that are investing in their citizens?

SlightlyLeftPad2• 9 months ago

It’s a failed state and people need to get out.

rogerrogerr• 9 months ago

I think if this was the plan, the right would be insisting on something more outlandish than a clean CR.

SV_BubbleTime5• 9 months ago

clean CR

So dastardly that no one seems to be able to explain how dastardly it is.

sigmar2• 9 months ago

It's double speak to call it a "clean CR" when there was just a huge bill changing a ton of tax code, budget, and increasing ICE's budget by 10x.[1] Passing the CR would have approved those spending changes as if they were in an appropriations bill.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Big_Beautiful_Bill_Act

thephyber8• 9 months ago

You still take Republicans in Congress at their word?

Look at the actions of Russell Vought, not the words of Ted Cruz.

coliveira• 9 months ago

That's exactly the plan. Not only this, but Republicans don't want to have congress working again. So their king will operate with zero oversight.

spwa4• 9 months ago

The first comment that factored in that Trump literally announced the closure of the government before democrats even realized what was going to happen.

pfooti3• 9 months ago

Yeah, I think the actual underpinning support that broke this time is recission. In the past, of congress passed a budget with money for the some department or line item, that money would be spent. Now the president has claimed that he doesn't have to spend money he had been directed to spend by finding bills, and (importantly) the supreme court has upheld this stance.

This means that there is no longer the ability to negotiate a budget in good faith. The Dems can fight for more health care funding (or whatever) and the compromise can happen, and then the president can just say "sike!" And not do it.

And, political leanings aside, this president has shown that he will indeed break any agreement he decides to, so there doesn't seem to be any reason to negotiate. So I'm thinking this shutdown lasts a Long time.

bee_rider6• 9 months ago

Yeah, that seems like a pretty major problem. It isn’t even clear really how negotiations should start, without any ability to make binding deals.

o11c3• 9 months ago

Frankly, it's time to look into seeing how recall elections work in various states.

"Our legally elected representative directly refuses to represent us" should be plenty of grounds.

euroderf• 9 months ago

Now the president has claimed that he doesn't have to spend money he had been directed to spend by finding bills, and (importantly) the supreme court has upheld this stance.

So this means the Supreme Court has unilaterally implemented the line item veto ? So much for "balls and strikes" eh.

ethbr12• 9 months ago

and (importantly) the supreme court has upheld this stance

Caveat: on a preliminary basis in most of the decisions

Important to differentiate SCOTUS saying "there isn't a compelling reason to block this power before we decide" and "here's our decision about the legality of this power"

Rough summary of current state: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/after-courts-hampered-...

I'm half-curious if Roberts is playing for time to avoid a constitutional crisis, figuring it's better to cede a temporary power (and avoid the executive stuffing the bench or whatever insane shit they'd try) than to cast it in case law. Not great for the rule of law, but I can see the realpolitik (which Marbury v. Madison shows has always been a consideration for inter-branch squabbles)

colechristensen2• 9 months ago

Someone tell me why this couldn't happen.

Beware the ides of march.

During a constitutional crisis that doesn't seem to have an immediate resolution political violence should be expected from the inside as an attempt to reach a resolution. The last line of defense is that military leadership actually do have a pretty solid loyalty to the constitution and soldiers are pretty well trained to follow the chain of command.

nobody can gain loyalty anywhere near trump nor does anyone have close to the unhinged charisma

but the government is shut down there should be no expectation that there will be any agreement to half fund it and absent that there's not really any foreseeable mechanism for the treasury to start operating on a large scale entirely outside of the law

so i guess the other last line of defense is the bond market and foreign exchange markets which wouldn't respond well to dictatorial control of the treasury and the fed

thephyber8• 9 months ago

It’s hard to foresee how close to accurate your forecast is.

But we are in a de facto junta if the military refuses to take orders from a president, at least for the duration of the presidency. It’s pretty hard to run a free and fair election under those conditions (we dealt with that in The South in the early Reconstruction years).

yks2• 9 months ago

military leadership actually do have a pretty solid loyalty to the constitution

Even if so, the tricky part of course is the SCOTUS that declares anything that Trump wants "constitutional".

LexiMax• 9 months ago

The last line of defense is that military leadership actually do have a pretty solid loyalty to the constitution and soldiers are pretty well trained to follow the chain of command.

Trump has done a number of monumentally stupid things over the past 10 months, but publicly threatening his generals takes the cake.

Donald. Sweetie. Pumpkin. What were you thinking? These men are career military men who are not impressed or intimidated by you or your bone spurs.

0xbadcafebee4• 9 months ago

soldiers are pretty well trained to follow the chain of command

Actually, soldiers mostly follow the money. In Rome the the Praetorian Guard realized their power and started installing leaders. In developing nations with military coups, the soldiers back whoever will pay them. Yes, ideologically soldiers will follow a chain of command and conservative-anything; but practically speaking, they will follow whoever lets them rape and pillage and retire to a villa.

bee_rider6• 9 months ago

Maybe if the shutdown goes to the midterm, we’ll send representatives who’ll lower federal taxes to a pittance. Then Trump can try his experiment of running the government on tariffs instead (good luck) and we all get to hope our states can fill the gap.

cosmicgadget• 9 months ago

I think ATCs will have resigned en masse long before then.

jfengel• 9 months ago

There is only limited legal ability to fund departments outside of an appropriations law. Republicans could pass one if they eliminated the filibuster, but that's a nuclear option they haven't leaned on yet.

The executive branch is applying various tricks to keep some absolutely critical departments going but they can't just fund anything they like. At least, not according to the Constitution, which is very explicit that you can't spend money without Congressional approval. But we'll see how much of a difference that makes.

insane_dreamer2• 9 months ago

not according to the Constitution, which is very explicit that you can't spend money without Congressional approval.

Trump has already shown his willingness to flout that. If he does it again, who's going to stop him? Congress?

lynndotpy3• 9 months ago

There is no reason it could not happen, our country (the United States) has rapidly and radically changed in the past 10 months and 10 days. The only longer shutdown was in 2018-2019 during Trump's first term, and this shutdown is looking to blow past that milestone.

I'm happy these posts aren't getting flagged any longer, though. For the centrality of the United States in the tech industry (and vice versa), US politics are unfortunately also the most relevant story in the tech industry for any time horizon of a month or longer. Even Trump's "Long Live the King" announcement from near the start of his term was not taken seriously. It was quickly flagged here.

It sucks, but Trump is just the biggest tech story of the day every day, by virtue of being the latent factor.

There is no reason that can't happen. But consider also what it will mean if the government does re-open. I think it's much more likely than not that it reopens under Republican terms.

It sounds dramatic but it is worth describing plainly: This administration is destructive, and it has already been the end of many things as we know it.

HaZeust• 9 months ago

HN admins have some of the most influential in this administration on speed dial, the flagging and non-reversal of flagging was not due to ignorance.

thephyber8• 9 months ago

I suspect this shutdown will last a while, but I don’t think Republicans will have enough votes to open anything without Democrat buy-in. R needs 20% of the Ds to vote for R bills to get anything budget-changing passed (except the 1 Reconciliation per year that only requires a simple majority). Short of Dems feeling some insane pressure (eg. Military threats or somehow defunding of core government tasks like police, education, medical, Social Security), I don’t see that happening right now.

ipython2• 9 months ago

My point is that they won’t feel the need to ever “officially” re open the government.

ssl-35• 9 months ago

I've mentioned it elsewhere, but: Republicans have enough votes to get moving on whatever they choose (including stopgap measures) regardless of what a minority of democrats may think: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option

The nuclear option can be invoked by a senator raising a point of order that contravenes a standing rule. The presiding officer would then overrule the point of order based on Senate rules and precedents; this ruling would then be appealed and overturned by a simple majority vote (or a tie vote), establishing a new precedent. The nuclear option is made possible by the principle in Senate procedure that appeals from rulings of the chair on points of order relating to nondebatable questions are themselves nondebatable. The nuclear option is most often discussed in connection with the filibuster. Since cloture is a nondebatable question, an appeal in relation to cloture is decided without debate. This obviates the usual requirement for a two-thirds majority to invoke cloture on a resolution amending the Standing Rules.

Figs• 9 months ago

If this continues for much longer, local/state governments can, should, and eventually will commandeer the taxes that currently go to the federal government. There is no point in paying federal tax if the federal government is no longer functional. States are already trying to step up with emergency declarations to enable financial support to work around SNAP being unfunded; passing state laws to redirect useless federal taxes to fund state food programs in order to prevent the alternative of immediate violent revolution as millions of people go hungry is an obvious course of action when they exhaust that capacity...

svnt4• 9 months ago

And this will work much better in most blue states than most red states, which are more dependent on federal funds. Which means the likely response is the federal government will begin funding what were formerly federal programs in select states.

collingreen5• 9 months ago

Is the Air Force still being paid? We've seen a complete willingness to have the military turned against the people and the tech gap between us citizens and the fully equipped military is staggering. A couple drone swarms and even hungry folks will have to take permanent cover and that's just the stuff declassified. It's an interesting time where a very small number of folks can effectively hold off the entire citizenry for long enough that the "millions of people go hungry" problem solves itself. Pick which regions get food first and you wont even have to bother with things like gerrymandering anymore.

pickledish• 9 months ago

Sadly I don't think it works this way, at least IIUC -- the state can't withhold taxes from the federal government, because those taxes (from biweekly paychecks anyway) don't go through the states -- they go directly to the federal government. Some states are trying to pass laws to still make headway in this area, for reasons like you suggest, for example NY:

https://www.cityandstateny.com/policy/2025/10/state-lawmaker...

(it's a really interesting situation since I think I read somewhere that the reason federal income taxes are directly remitted to the federal government today, is specifically to disallow this kind of state retaliation)

keysersoze33• 9 months ago

(we need to talk about your TPS reports)

0xbadcafebee4• 9 months ago

It won't happen that way because in a couple of years they will give Trump unlimited power the same way they did Hitler in the 1930s. From democracy to dictatorship in less than a decade.

sleight42• 9 months ago

Because at some point the Executive Branch has no more budget left to spend because Congress can't approve a budget?

zermelo4• 9 months ago

To most of the commentators saying "why work when you're not getting paid", please correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't federal employees not paid during a government shutdown getting retroactive pay once funding has been restored?

recursive• 9 months ago

I don't think anyone knows.

thetron• 9 months ago

You can't buy food with an IOU from your employer.

knollimar• 9 months ago

New startup idea?

lmm• 9 months ago

You can't buy food with an IOU from your employer.

Historically in times of war or civil disorder it's often been possible.

nocoiner2• 9 months ago

Sometimes you can. A decade or so ago when California ran out of money, they issued warrants to their payees, and lots of banks accepted those at face value.

collinmcnulty• 9 months ago

Practically speaking, you are correct, but interestingly all dollars are literally an IOU from the US government, so you do buy food with an IOU from their employer. Debt from or to a sovereign is the basis for all money.

thephyber8• 9 months ago

In practice, most people in the US use credit (which means spending can go unpaid for about 25 days without any costs incurred) and most people bank with a national bank (so they are screwed if all federal employees stop paying back loans at the same time).

That said, food banks are gonna see lots more foot traffic and federal employees might start looking for other work.

fragmede• 9 months ago

It's hard to eat retroactive dollars today. While some organizations are trying to make this sorta possible (specifically, I've heard that some banks are giving out loans to federal employees), why deal with all that and take out a loan when you could jump to that private sector job that your buddy's been trying to poach you for, for years? Y'know, the one that pays a lot better?

shawn_w• 9 months ago

In theory, yes. But with this administration, who knows?

egonschiele• 9 months ago

Yes, but if you decide to leave your job during the shutdown (say to find more stable work), you do not get paid for the unpaid hours you worked.

And as others are saying, plenty of people can't afford to work for no pay indefinitely.

fracus• 9 months ago

Of course they can. A bank would have no problems giving out loans given the pay is coming eventually.

gazook89• 9 months ago

The administration has posited that they don’t have to do backpay for many positions. Currently, there is no reason anyone could expect norms to hold.

metabagel2• 9 months ago

This administration is just as likely to provide back pay only to ATC employees in states which voted for our God Emperor.

wat10000• 9 months ago

They’re supposed to. I think even legally required to. But this administration doesn’t seem to care much about what it’s required to do.

In any case, many Americans have no appreciable savings. Getting paid someday when Congress gets its head out of its ass doesn’t feed your kids today.

bee_rider6• 9 months ago

Could be wrong, but IIRC congress has to explicitly approve the back pay. So, who knows if it’ll happen…

zermelo4• 9 months ago

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/24

Passed by Congress in January 2019 and signed by Trump. " Employees furloughed as a result of a lapse in appropriations shall be compensated for the period of the lapse on the earliest date possible after the lapse ends, regardless of scheduled pay dates. "

hshdhdhehd5• 9 months ago

Why work in current job when you cant pay your rent today. Why not get a different job so you can.

collingreen5• 9 months ago

Just mozy on down to the job orchard and pick off a new job from the ATC career tree!

bsder• 9 months ago

Only if you are an actual employee. If you are a contractor, probably not.

And a lot of the government is contractors.

jmtulloss• 9 months ago

A lot of commenters are focusing on the legalities and likelihood of backpay, which is relevant but I tend to agree with you… it’ll get paid because it’s in the interest of both parties to pay their employees what they’re owed.

We’re staring down the barrel of two missed paychecks though. If you're living paycheck to paycheck you’re getting desperate. If you’re living with about 1 month of emergency buffer… that buffer is one paycheck away from gone. It’s a cash flow issue

lynndotpy3• 9 months ago

As others have pointed out, this has gone on for a full month and this is increasingly unsustainable for people.

Essential employees were already guaranteed backpay, but in 2019, on day 26 of the 35-day shutdown during his first term, Trump signed GEFTA into law, guaranteeing that furloughed employees also got backpay.

But earlier this month, the White House issued a memo contradicting that, saying furloughed workers aren't entitled to backpay, and the OMB edited articles to delete references to the GEFTA.

Even though the GEFTA is law, we're seeing the Trump administration break laws all the time with no accountability, and so a broke federal employee would reasonably not anticipate a realistic, timely, and achievable legal recourse for a GEFTA violation while they're just trying to feed their family.

JohnTHaller• 9 months ago

The Republicans are working on not paying many of federal employees. Plus, the federal employees that use them will lose SNAP benefits/food stamps tomorrow.

dragonwriter2• 9 months ago

Even if they will (which shouldn't be in doubt, but these are not normal times) it is still when they are not getting paid now, even if they will be paid some time after an event which is expected to occur at some uncertain time in the future finally happens.

hnburnsy2• 9 months ago

MCO ATCSCC ADVZY 151 DCC 10/30/2025 OPERATIONS PLAN

https://www.fly.faa.gov/adv/adv_otherdis?adv_date=10302025&a...

MCO GROUND DELAY PROGRAM WAS ISSUED AND USERS CAN EXPECT A PERIOD OF TIME LATER IN THE EVENINGWHEN NO ARRIVALS WILL BE ABLE TO LAND AS THERE WILL BE NO CERTIFIED AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS AVAILABLE AT MCO.

dpe82• 9 months ago

ATC is severely understaffed nationwide and it's particularly bad in the New York area even without a government shutdown. It's a difficult, stressful job and was already even harder because mandatory overtime has been the norm for quite a while. So it's not surprising that when you stop paying people... some of them will start finding reasons they can't make it to work.

This has been a known problem for a very long time and Congress has continuously refused to do anything about it.

mlrtime3• 9 months ago

Not paying is just 1 of the reasons. There are many stressful important jobs in America. ATC is in a unique position of getting squeezed at all ends.

There are 1000's of qualified people wanting to apply but the government bureaucracy halts it.

What is the median time from application to FTH for a ATC?

esalman• 9 months ago

I was listening in on a Twitch stream today, and the streamer mentioned he wanted to become an ATC, but was told he needs to have military experience to become one.

hnburnsy2• 9 months ago

Advisory 27, Ground stop was lifted, Disregard Expected Departure Clearance Times for flights destined to JFK.

-------------------

ATCSCC ADVZY 027 JFK/ZNY 10/31/2025 CDM GROUND DELAY PROGRAM CNX MESSAGE:

CTL ELEMENT: JFK ELEMENT TYPE: APT ADL TIME: 0252Z GDP CNX PERIOD: 31/0252Z - 31/1517Z DISREGARD EDCTS FOR DEST JFK COMMENTS: EFFECTIVE TIME:

310256-311617 SIGNATURE:

25/10/31 02:56

johnbatch• 9 months ago

This was canceled 21 minutes after it was issued. https://www.fly.faa.gov/adv/adv_list?whichAdvisories=ATCSCC&...

alephnerd4• 9 months ago

The ground stop mentioned ended 7 hours ago and seemed to be due to an airplane emergency [0].

[0] https://pix11.com/news/local-news/ground-stops-at-jfk-due-to...

Pxtl2• 9 months ago

Do Americans know that other countries don't have this wierd "government shuts down if we don't pass a budget" thing?

alephnerd4• 9 months ago

The ground stop was due to an aircraft emergency [0] and lifted within 21 minutes of being announced [1].

There are plenty of reasons to call out the shutdown, but using disinfo is the wrong method.

[0] https://pix11.com/news/local-news/ground-stops-at-jfk-due-to...

[1] https://www.fly.faa.gov/adv/adv_list?whichAdvisories=ATCSCC&...

metabagel2• 9 months ago

Other ground delays due to ATC staffing issues, though.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ground-delays-issued-sh...

BergAndCo• 9 months ago

As always, I had to scroll to the bottom of the comments for HN to be any semblance of useful.

whatever12• 9 months ago

Why can't the airlines pay the air traffic controllers? They pay anyway for airport fees, it should be a minimal difference in the ticket cost.

moelf• 9 months ago

IIUC they legally can't do that. ATC are federal employees, you can't just have private companies pay off federal workers. (Well, I know Trump's friend is literally doing that for the military so idk, maybe laws are just words these days)

hshdhdhehd5• 9 months ago

Why hire private? Why not fund the existing federal ones?

whatever12• 9 months ago

Companies can give gifts to individuals, as long as they report them and pay tax on them.

plasticsoprano• 9 months ago

Except the ground stop was due to an emergency with a flight from Puerto Rico

https://rollingout.com/2025/10/30/jfk-airport-frontier-fligh...

macinjosh• 9 months ago

ATC should be a computer at this point.

vesterthacker• 9 months ago

Safety always comes first. Good call! I wouldn’t want to travel without proper staffing in place. Do you think other airports will follow suit? I hope so.

insane_dreamer2• 9 months ago

Maybe they could take the money to keep "essential" ICE thug^H^H^H^Hagents grabbing people off the street, to fund the truly essential ATCs that make air travel possible.

sershe2• 9 months ago

Why are ATC paid by the federal government anyway? As far as I understand airports are separate private heavily regulated entities. Seems like thus should be trivial to solve by having airports/municipalities pay for their ATC. Might also improve the pay if they have to compete and take blame for this kind of stuff, instead of passing the buck.

0xbadcafebee4• 9 months ago

Simple: even in the 1930s, it was obvious that a private corporation would prioritize profit over safety. At the time it was mostly rich people who could afford to fly. So, miraculously, the government decided it needed to ensure the safety of air travel.

Trump famously wanted to privatize the ATC in his first term. But now all the industry veterans are saying they'd much rather have the modernizations proposed for the government system (https://www.npr.org/2025/06/27/nx-s1-5442651/privatizing-air...) than switch to a private model.

What's funny is, we're gonna fuck it up either way.

dingaling• 9 months ago

For comparison:

Terminal ATC in the UK is a competitive market. Each airport is free to tender for private companies to operate the service.

En route ATC remains a government-granted monopoly awarded to NATS, which is the privatised former national provider.

sershe2• 9 months ago

Private corporation seem to be doing fine with pilots though, both for rich people, and for commercial aviation. Doesn't seem that different

0xbadcafebee4• 9 months ago

Another fun "quirk" of Hacker News: this post has been unlinked from all front pages (you can't find it by hitting "More" from front page) even though it was on the front page very recently.

What I was going to say before was: Remember when air traffic controllers went on strike, and Reagan killed the future of unions in the USA by firing all the striking workers and banning them from ever having a government job? This is the legacy of that action. Never underestimate the lasting impact of an incompetent entertainer made President.

Ground stop at JFK due to staffing

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