The U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have confirmed that the agency’s emergency order reducing flight activity across the National Airspace System (NAS) will be lifted at 6 am on Monday, 17 November.
The decision will allow the US aviation network to return to standard operational levels.
The FAA’s safety team recommended ending the order after examining recent safety data and observing a sustained reduction in staffing-related incidents at air traffic control facilities. The order had been introduced during the extended federal government shutdown, which affected controller availability nationwide.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy said:I want to thank the FAA’s dedicated safety team for keeping our skies secure during the longest government shutdown in our nation’s history and the country’s patience for putting safety first. Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, controllers have returned to their posts and normal operations can resume.
Now we can refocus our efforts on surging controller hiring and building the brand new, state of the art air traffic control system the American people deserve.
Recent figures show that staffing triggers have fallen steadily, with one recorded on 16 November compared with a peak of 81 on 8 November. The FAA reports that current levels are broadly consistent with pre-shutdown conditions.
With the termination of the emergency order, several temporary restrictions will also be removed. These include limits on certain general aviation operations at 12 airports, restrictions on visual flight rule approaches where staffing triggers were present, time-of-day limits on commercial space launches and re-entries, and constraints on parachute and aerial photography activities near affected facilities.
The FAA has acknowledged reports of non-compliance by some carriers during the emergency period and is reviewing potential enforcement actions.
