The American government has been shut down for 35 days now and the cracks are finally starting to show. Not only is PornHub's viewership up, but now airports are being effected too. The Federal Aviation Administration has been stopping flights at La Guardia airport in New York because their air traffic control towers are understaffed. As they put it on their website: "due to OTHER / STAFFING, there is a Traffic Management Program in effect for traffic arriving La Guardia Airport, New York, NY (LGA). This is causing some arriving flights to be delayed an average of 1 hour and 26 minutes."
This is causing delays at other airports too, like Newark and Philadelphia, since the whole system is interconnected. The exact cause, says the FAA, is that they've seen "slight increase in sick leave at two facilities" since the shutdown. To combat this, they're "augmenting staffing, rerouting traffic, and increasing spacing between aircraft when needed." The problem is also happening at JFK, according to travellers, although no official statement has been released:
As it stands, the situation seems poised to go nowhere but downhill, with no end in sight to the government shutdown. The mayor of New York, Bill De Blasio, had a dramatic take this morning that, unfortunately, may not be too far off the mark: "if our airports are not functioning well, people will die."
