The first 30 days of the budget impasse in the U.S. Congress brought some flight delays to airports around the country, as air traffic controllers who are not receiving paychecks called out from work at higher rates than usual.
However, as the impasse goes into its second month, corporate and association meetings happening in the busy period of November through mid-December are likely to see some attendees arriving late and possibly missing part of the proceedings. Why? Because call-out rates for air traffic controllers in Newark and some other airports are approaching 80%.
For example, November 3 saw flight delays affecting as many as 3.2 million passengers nationwide as the Federal Aviation Administration was forced to call ground stops in Dallas, Houston, and Washington, D.C., in addition to airports already seeing delay issues, such as New York JFK, Newark, Austin, Los Angeles, Orlando and Nashville.
In fact, nearly half of the 30 busiest U.S. airports now face shortages of air traffic controllers, the highest rate since the shutdown began on October 1.
Quick Thinking Saves a Meeting
In late October, one Nashville-based planner had to improvise on the spot to get 29 members of her event team to a meeting in Dallas. Becky Phelps, senior event manager for Ramsey Solutions, learned that weather had delayed and then cancelled the late-morning Saturday flights of those 29 colleagues, who were scheduled to work an 800-person event starting midday Sunday.
Then, Phelps heard that Nashville might not allow any flights to leave after 7 p.m. Saturday because of a lack of air traffic controllers there. As a result, she and her leadership team jumped into action.
“They said, ‘We could ask these guys if they’re willing to drive,’” Phelps recalled. “Our team is really committed to helping our attendees improve their businesses and their lives, so they were willing to do it.”
Next, “we managed to get in touch with our contact at Enterprise, and somehow she was able to pull strings and get us six vans for a one-way trip to Dallas,” Phelps added.
The 680-mile drive took 11 hours, some of it through severe thunderstorms. The 29 team members checked in at 4 a.m. on Sunday and were in the meeting space for the 11 a.m. final walk-through, the opening of registration at 1 p.m. and the 6 p.m. welcome reception.
Until a federal budget agreement is completed and air traffic controllers get back to normal staffing levels, it’s possible that planners will face more situations like this with their upcoming meetings.
