Travel Warning Government Shutdown: Unpaid Essential Work

The transcription discusses the impact of the government shutdown on travel, focusing on air travel, passport services, border security, national parks, and DC tours. Essential employees, including TSA officers and air traffic controllers, are working without pay, leading to potential delays and safety concerns. While passport and visa services are currently unaffected, prolonged shutdown could impact consular services. National parks remain open but unmanaged, with limited emergency services. Travelers are advised to monitor flight status, pack extra patience, and be self-sufficient in parks. The shutdown's long-term effects include disrupted hiring and capacity building, potentially leading to lasting consequences for travel systems. Okay, so let's dive in. We're now on day eight of this government shutdown. Right, day eight. And the clock is ticking, really. And for anyone planning to travel, there's this kind of fundamental conflict happening, isn't there? You've got, what is it, almost three-quarters of the Department of Homeland Security folks? Yeah, over 185,000 people. .185,000 essential employees who have to be there, you know, keeping things running, keeping us safe. But working without pay. That's the core issue. Exactly. So what we really want to do today is figure out, okay, what does this actually mean for your travel plans right now, and what you should maybe be doing differently? Well, the immediate thing, I think, is the air travel system. It's always the first place you feel it. Because you have TSA officers, air traffic controllers. Yeah. They're all deemed essential, right? They have to show up. That's correct. Over 61,000 TSA officers, about 13,200 controllers. They're on the job. But unpaid. Unpaid. And that's the difference between, say, day one and day eight. The system just gets, well, a little bit more brittle. People are stressed. Brittle. And that's not just theoretical, is it? We've seen actual impacts already this week. We have. Flight arrivals got delayed at Newark, Denver, and even Hollywood-Burbank. The reason cited, air traffic control staffing shortages. Wow. So it's already happening. And this reminds me, didn't we see something similar, but like worse during the longer shutdown a few years back? Absolutely. The 2018-2019 shutdowns, that lasted 35 days. That's where you really saw the stress manifest. TSA sick calls spiked. How high did they go? Around a 10% sick rate, which is significant. And it caused major delays. Miami even had to close a whole terminal temporarily. A whole terminal. Okay. So that history is a serious warning. It really is. Especially because, look, we were already dealing with staffing issues before the shutdown. There's a shortage of about 3,000 air traffic controllers nationwide. Right. So you put this unpaid work situation on top of an existing shortage. And you get problems fast. And it's not just inconvenience. The US Travel Association estimates a shutdown costs the economy something like a billion dollars a week, mostly from these kinds of travel snags. A billion a week? That's huge. Okay. So air travel is clearly under pressure. What about getting documents, like passports or visas? I've seen some chatter online. People worry trips are impossible now. Yeah. There's been some panic. But for passports and most visas, it's generally okay. For now, at least. Why's that? Because they're mostly funded by the fees people pay when they apply. So they have their own sort of funding stream, separate from the annual budget fight. Ah. Fee funded. Got it. But there's a caveat. If this shutdown drags on for, say, several weeks, you might see some consular offices reducing appointment slots, or maybe administrative processing slows down a bit. Support staff might be affected eventually. Okay. So keep an eye on it if it continues, but no immediate passport crisis. Right. And same goes for the physical borders. The ports of entry remain open. So Customs and Border Protection officers, Border Patrol agents, they're working too? Yes. Over 25,000 CBP officers and over 19,000 Border Patrol agents. All essential, all working unpaid. Okay. Now, what about national parks? This is often a big point of confusion during shutdowns. Are they open, closed, something in between? They're generally in that in-between state. Think of it as open, but unmanaged. Open, but unmanaged. What does that mean in practice? It means the roads, the trails, they'll likely still be physically accessible. You can probably drive in, but, and this is crucial, almost all services are stopped. Like what kind of services? Visitor centers, closed. They're not collecting entrance fees. Trash collection, probably stopped. Restrooms, unlikely to be cleaned. And the most critical part. Let me guess, emergency services. Exactly. Emergency and rescue services are likely suspended or at best, very limited. So if you go into a park, you need to understand you are largely on your own if something goes wrong. Extreme caution is needed. That is vital information. If you're heading to a national park, you absolutely need to know that safety net isn't there. Definitely. And quickly for travel to DC, Amtrak's running. Amtrak is fine, yeah. But those government building tours, people often do the capital tours. FBI building those are canceled for now. Okay. So putting it all together, what's the advice for someone with travel plans in the coming days or weeks? Cancel, postpone. No, I don't think canceling is necessary for most people right now. The advice is really, keep your plans, but pack extra patience. Build in more time. Yes. Maybe add, say, an extra 60 to 90 minutes to your usual airport arrival time, just in case. Monitor your flight status closely. Check for any updates if you have consular appointments. And for parks, be self-sufficient and maybe rethink riskier activities. Absolutely. The bottom line is, the system is running, but it's under significant strain because the people running it aren't being paid. Be prepared for potential delays and hiccups. Which really brings us to the bigger picture here, the long-term worry. It's not just about the delays this week, is it? No, not at all. The real danger, I think, is the impact on future capacity and morale. This shutdown actually pauses all the critical hiring and onboarding for new DHS employees. Oh, wow. Because they can't even bring new people in right now. Correct. And think about agencies like TSA or air traffic control, where we already know they're struggling to hire enough people. Right. The shortages we mentioned. Exactly. So, pausing hiring now, especially right before the busy holiday travel season kicks in, well, that's just digging the hole deeper. We'll need more TSA officers, more controllers then. So, the disruption we might feel now could actually echo for months because they couldn't hire during the shutdown. That's the concern. That hiring freeze, that inability to build capacity now, that could be the lasting cost we're all paying well into next year, long after the shutdown itself ends. It makes the whole system more fragile down the road.