The government shutdown that began Oct. 1 has ripple effects not only for those who fly in and out of Waco Regional Airport but the unpaid federal workers who help keep the airport running.
The FAA decision to scale back flights across the country reduced Waco Regional Airport daily flights by two-thirds on Friday to one arrival and one departure, according to American Airlines. Saturday’s schedule will lose one departure and one arrival.
Meanwhile, the strain is starting to show for federal airport workers. Among them is Timothy Lindsey, who works at Waco Regional Airport as a professional aviation safety specialist and is a regional union representative for AFL-CIO.
For him, the uncertainty of when the federal shutdown will end means he has to tap into savings to make rent.
Lindsey and other federal workers have missed two checks since the longest shutdown on record began. Now his family is drawing down emergency funds they set aside as a safety net after the previous federal shutdown in 2019.
“My wife literally asked me almost daily, ‘How much longer can we go? Are we okay? Are we good on this?’” Lindsey said.
Nationwide, some 60,000 FAA employees including air traffic controllers were working without pay as of Oct. 22, Reuters reported.
The FAA has announced that flights would be reduced by 10% at 40 major airports starting this weekend, according to the Associated Press. Those include DFW Airport, the sole commercial connection with Waco Regional Airport.
Lindsey said the sporadic nature of work during the shutdown has made it hard for federal aviation employees to adjust. For example, he said an FAA administrative employee at Waco Regional Airport was furloughed due to the shutdown but has since been called in to work some days without pay. That means the employee was unable to get other temporary work.
He said the average pay for administrative employees is $30,000-$60,000.
“What we want is the flying public to be safe, and we want the employees that are maintaining the system to be paid,” Lindsey said.
Lindsey said airports have suffered for several years from unfilled vacancies in air control towers. He said the government has been working to train additional air traffic controllers, but that training is now delayed.
“We’ve been historically understaffed, and we’re just now getting a staffing plan that’s going through Congress to help get those numbers and such back up,” Lindsey said.
“We’re not able to get that funding and get that and move forward with some of that modernization. It’s going to push things back quite a long ways.”
Cancel the deer hunt?
For families like Lindsey’s, the extended period without pay forces some hard decisions.
As deer hunting season began this month, Lindsey got a call that a spot opened up in the Texas Youth Hunting Program, which would allow him to go hunting with his 11-year-old son.
But the program fee was $200. Lindsey’s wife asked him whether this was a cost they could afford. He decided to go ahead.
“I’m going to do everything I can to try and make sure that this shutdown doesn’t have that impact on my kids to the best of my ability,” Lindsey said. “So, you know, I told her, we’ll make it work. I’ll figure it out right now. If this keeps going or any longer, at some point, I’m not going to be able to just make those things happen.”
Lindsey said the government shutdown takes a toll on employees’ mental health, which can affect their job performance..
“We have had people start calling out sick from dealing with the stress and not getting paid,” Lindsey said.
Because of the sensitive equipment they handle, such as the instrument landing system, employees are required to be capable and ready.
“You don’t want somebody that’s having to maintain that to also be worrying about, ‘Is the mortgage getting paid?’ “ he said.
