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Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told “Fox & Friends” on Thursday that the decision to limit air travel capacity to 40 airports was “data-driven.”
“We were seeing increased pressure in these 40 markets. And we looked at the data — this was data driven — and so taking 10% of the flights out will reduce that pressure, which is what we want to do,” Duffy said.
“Now, does that mean there’s going to be no delays? No, Brian,” Duffy told Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade. “There’s potentially still going to be delays if we have staffing triggers, and we don’t have enough controllers in an aerospace where we did cut 10%, you might see additional delays.”
As of 9:00 a.m. ET on Thursday, 825 flights within, into or out of the U.S. had been delayed while 42 had been canceled, according to FlightAware.com.
When asked about whether Americans should consider canceling their holiday plans, Duffy said it was “hard to predict” what could happen in the coming weeks, pointing to the historically long government shutdown.
“As we come into Thanksgiving, if we’re still in the shutdown posture, it’s going to be rough out there. Really rough. And we’ll mitigate the safety side, but will you fly on time? Will your flight actually go? That is yet to be seen, but there’ll be more disruption,” Duffy said.
However, the transportation secretary said that Americans should still book their holiday travel if they see deals they want to grab. He added that he has already booked travel for his children to come home for the holidays.
“We’re going to have to all work together as the American people to navigate this really not great situation that I think Democrats in the Senate are putting on the American people with the shutdown,” Duffy added.
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