Ice the Wallbangers.

VamoSanctity (Freedom of Movement) + Border/Shutdown Update (Premise).

In gov we trust? Among the partial shutdown’s aftertastes: Reliability be gone, we now face an evermore uncertain federal future, everything more or less on ice for now—rather thin ice, at that.

This inane border security stalemate is an open and shut case for dispensing with the useless political wrangling and schoolyard grandstanding for good. Especially travelers’ good.

Because the wasteful 35-day standoff, U.S. history’s longest, came with a $6bn price tag thus far, idling 800,000 federal workers—let alone sundry independent contractors—waylaying, if not endangering most everybody else. Here was mass finger thrumming inconvenience, all over a series of sophomoric politico thumbsucking fits and spats.

Reeling Between the Rounds. 

Day after day, the nation’s air transportation system became stressed and overstretched to the point of deterioration—the repercussions of which have yet to be fully realized. Before long, some 51,000 $15/hr TSA screeners, enduring zero paycheck hardships on the home front, were ordered to work airport checkpoints on the house. Many (upwards of 10%), desperate and dispirited, began calling in sick; some seeking other employment, resorting to pawn shops and food banks to make ends meet. These were the very agents tasked and trusted with detecting, unpacking any threats to our travel safety in the air. And one desperate, suicidal screener even jumped to his death off a balcony in an Orlando, Florida airport terminal.

Soon the TSA was shifting already overworked screeners around the system to cover staffing outages and chronic shortages. Airports from Houston to Atlanta and Miami began closing off gates and whole terminals. We travelers faced 90-minute to hours-long delays, tensions building checkpoint to plane cabin nationwide. 

But beyond frustrated, distracted security screeners—beyond the specter of a compromised aircraft/carrier safety regimen due to the furloughing of federal investigators—were the added pressures on air traffic controllers, deemed essential by the FAA and ordered back to towers without pay.*

Eventually controllers themselves did begin calling out sick, but the vast majority of an ATC force already at a 30-year staffing low did continue reporting to airport and regional towers, struggling to keep the air traffic ecosystem safely aflight with minimal delays. This, while U.S. aviation officials maintained that air travel safety had not been jeopardized.

That is until Friday, January 26, when a spate of of ATC union-led actions and controller no-shows in Washington D.C. and Jacksonville, Florida—which sparked cascading flight delays (2400+) from New York’s LaGuardia Airport up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Denying it had coordinated a sickout over pay and hours, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association nevertheless asserted that the “air safety environment” was being  “unconscionably” crippled by the hour.

The Mourning After. 

Breaking point: It is clear that the overall threat to air safety was no small factor in the White House decision to suspend, if not end the partial government shutdown over this past weekend.

This ‘recess’ will last until February 15, ostensibly affording some breathing room for negotiations with Congressional Democrats over southern border security and broader immigration issues. 

To date, the embarrassing nearly five week standoff has cost the airline industry nearly $105m in revenue, stifled fleet growth and route expansion. For that matter, the National Park Service lost some $16m in needed revenue (and many staffers) over the course of the partial shutdown. While defacement and destructive vandalism are inflicted upon the likes of untended Joshua Tree National Monument.

Now apparently, pride goeth before the wall, so here we are. Could be the U.S. air transport system will be back up the speed in three week’s time, that government workers will quickly receive back pay due them. But there is no iron-clad guarantee by this sketchy, dysfunctional administration.

President Proud Boy himself restates that no wall, no deal—giving any border resolution by February 15th  a 50-50 chance at best. He also holds out the option of a national emergency declaration. As for Congress, $5.7bn for the Trump stump speech fixation remains a non-starter. Therein the legislative freeze hardens, with no sign of a thaw.

So Vamigré will diligently monitor developments as feckless Washington leaders continue to bang their knuckleheads against a far-fetched border wall. Think about it, how would another St. Valentine’s Day massacre taste about now? May be better to ICE the lot of them.

In the meantime, why not leave a little something in your TSA valuables tray… MTC…

* Although it appears that one airline, namely Southwest, was able to skirt the no-pay safety inspection squall by covering the cost of a single furloughed inspector on the brink of the shutdown. Local FAA officials OKed the payment of $3,150 by the carrier for a three-hour administrative session with a senior inspector to authorize the adding of three Boeing 737 MAX aircraft to SWA’s new West Coast to Hawaii servicel—just a shade before and after the shutdown began last December.

Nothing illegal, yet highly unusual: The furloughed inspectors’ charge first and foremost is to oversee the FAA’s fundamental safety responsibilities industry wide, not dole out exclusives. Whatever else, the arrangement demonstrated the clout Southwest must have in the agency and marketplace, for it alone was afforded this investigative courtesy, while other carriers had to continue grounding their new planes until standard certification procedures could resume post-shutdown, despite their requests for similar safety inspection facilitation.

Favoritism? Competitive advantage? Airlines such as Delta might also complain about word that the FAA has yet to even invoice SWA for atypical sign-off, as per the service’s reimbursement agreement.

But it might simply be good karma for the fee fury that Southwest has refrained from foisting upon its passengers…