Flights canceled at Detroit Metro Airport as government shutdown continues: What we know

Flights at Detroit Metro Airport and across the United States have been and will continue to be canceled with no end in sight to the federal shutdown, which began Oct. 1.

Here’s what we know as of the late afternoon Friday, Nov. 7:

How flight cancellations will ramp up

The Trump administration (through the U.S. Department of Transportation and Federal Aviation Administration) has ordered airlines to cancel 4% of domestic flights through 40 major hubs, including Detroit (otherwise known as DTW through its three-letter call code) beginning Nov. 7 to alleviate some of the stress on air traffic controllers who have been working without pay for more than a month. The percentage of canceled flights will ramp up to 10% if Congress doesn’t reach a deal to fund the government by late next week.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy suggested Nov. 7 in remarks that the percentage of canceled flights could go as high as 15% or higher if necessary.

Officials say cancellations are about safety

Duffy said Nov. 6 this isn’t about politics, it’s about safety, given the burden being placed on air traffic controllers nationwide and an increase in delays that have risen in recent days. “This isn’t about politics — it’s about assessing the data and alleviating building risk in the system as controllers continue to work without pay. It’s safe to fly today, and it will continue to be safe to fly next week because of the proactive actions we are taking.”

On Nov. 7, he reiterated that message: “I have done all I can to minimize disruption in the airspace. I’m trying to get people where they want to go and to get there safely. We are taking unprecedented action at @USDOT because we are in an unprecedented shutdown.”

DTW flight cancellations so far

According to FlightAware, a site that provides comprehensive data on flight status, 35 flights scheduled to fly into or out of Detroit Metro Airport were canceled on Nov. 7 (as of 5 p.m.). While it’s not clear that all of those cancellations are due to the shutdown order, it’s a safe bet most are, considering there were six cancellations on Nov. 6 and four on Nov. 5. Most (eight) were Delta flights, which is unsurprising since Detroit is a major hub for that airline, and regional flyer SkyWest (also with eight). Regional airlines Republic and Endeavor Air had six cancellations apiece.

Also, that may be a preliminary number: it could grow through the night. (Nationally, the number of domestic flights canceled was just over 1,000 by 5 p.m. by the way; that number had been rising throughout the day.)

As for Saturday, Nov. 8, and Sunday, Nov. 9, 30 or fewer each day were scheduled to be canceled into and out of DTW, though it was unclear whether that included all the flights from Delta and some other carriers (and, again, it could change).

So far, so good at DTW

Security lines appeared to be moving well and the wait times at security check-ins were a typical 0-15 minutes, according to the Transportation Security Administration. And there didn’t appear to be any immediate escalation of chaos and associated delays, which 30-year-old Cristian Garcia was grateful to see: He flew in via Spirit out of Orlando with his wife and his baby to attend a funeral in Lansing. Security lines in Orlando were long, he said, but the family line moved quickly and he kept an eye on his flight the whole time. Driving with a baby, he figured, was out of the question. “We were definitely very worried that we were going to get canceled,” said a relieved Garcia. “We would not have known what to do (if their flight had been canceled).”

Mano Hazime, 39, of Dearborn, was headed in the opposite direction to Orlando to celebrate the grand opening of a restaurant a friend owns in Jacksonville. It was her first time flying Frontier Airlines and she hadn’t checked her flight status. But her friend called her and told her to check on the flight. “I hope it’s not delayed,” she said.

Expect pileups in cancellations (and delays) today

The Flighty app (which is also on social media platform X at @flighty) also indicated late Nov. 6 that the FAA was reporting flight delays could be expected to pile up in many airports on Nov. 7, especially in the Northeast because of staffing issues with air traffic controllers and other personnel (Transportation Security Administration officials are also working without pay), a situation which also could get worse as the day goes on.

That certainly seemed to be happening, per the FAA’s online system status dashboard and its operations memos: As of 11 a.m., it was noting multiple staffing triggers affecting flight operations, including those in or around Atlanta; Austin; Boston; Newark, New Jersey; Philadelphia; Jacksonville, Florida; San Francisco; Kansas City, and Washington’s Reagan National Airport (where many Detroit Lions fans were headed for the Nov. 9 game against the Commanders).

By late afternoon, delays had spread to Chicago O’Hare, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix and across the northern border in Toronto, and delays were averaging four hours at Washington Reagan and hitting a maximum of more than seven. And that’s with the flight cancellations, suggesting they were not having as widespread an effect on reducing wait times and stress on the air traffic control system as hoped (at least not initially).

FlightAware’s numbers for delays by late afternoon on Nov. 7 in the United States was about 4,300 flights but there was still a lot of the day to go, suggesting it wouldn’t be much changed from Nov. 6 − even with the cancellations.

Cancellations/delays can have a cascading effect

Even if Detroit Metro Airport doesn’t suffer direct delays due to staffing, anything that gums up the air network ripples throughout it, since a flight that doesn’t leave an airport on time can get somewhere else late, tangling connections, flight crew assignments, aircraft maintenance, return flights and more. That leads to uncertainty, missed appointments, canceled reservations and potential business losses (think of auto execs flying around the United States to or from Detroit for meetings) — and that’s before considering all the economic results that a long shutdown can have on personal spending.

Patrick Anderson of the Anderson Economic Group in Michigan and Chicago tells the Free Press, “Delays have what we call ‘network effects’ in business economics. Hold up a bunch of planes in one airport, and you get a cascading effect down the line. Delays also affect the behavior of people. Some people are going to just not travel. Others will arrive early, and anticipate waiting longer. Finally, this is affecting air traffic controllers that are working without pay. Thus, there are many unpredictable factors at play here. … We are now in uncharted territory.”

It’s also a bad time of year to fool with travel

The airlines and economists are also keenly aware that we are approaching some of the busiest travel times of the year with Thanksgiving less than three weeks away on Nov. 27 and Christmas a month after. Flight cancellations now could seriously scare people who have already made plans or were expecting to do so shortly with no idea how long the shutdown could last.

Take Jason Scott, a high school teacher in Armada, Michigan, who told the Free Press on Nov. 7 he is concerned that he and his wife may have to cancel their plans to fly to Florida for Christmas to visit family. They’re not scheduled to depart until Dec. 24. But Nov. 22 — about two weeks away — is the last day they can cancel without penalty. If the situation then is the same (or worse) than it is now, with flights reduced in Detroit, the city he departs from, and Chicago, where he is scheduled to make connections, he’ll cancel, he said.

Scott, who teaches social studies, also noted that though school doesn’t resume until Jan. 5, districts are particularly strict about teachers missing school just before or just after a holiday and he can’t take the risk of getting stranded out of town. “In my opinion, any government employee who is directly involved with the safety of citizens … in this case air traffic controllers … money should be set aside to pay them (during a shutdown),” Scott said.

How airlines are handling cancellations

All of the major airlines have made it clear that they plan to give travelers as much advance notice of cancellations as possible, offer rebookings and provide flexibility in giving customers full refunds — which the FAA is requiring — and rebooking without charge. The best advice to travelers is to check with your airlines, keep an eye on their apps and watch your text messages. Patience almost certainly is warranted. (Also, the FAA says that while airlines have to refund flight costs for canceled flights, they do not have to pay secondary costs like those for hotels, food or other transportation.)

What it will take to reopen the federal government

As for the causes of the federal shutdown, which is now the longest in U.S. history, the short version is this: The federal government can’t fully operate without a continuing appropriation from Congress that authorizes it to spend money, and the latest one expired Sept. 30. The U.S. Senate needs 60 votes to pass a new one and there are 53 Republicans in that chamber. Democrats have so far declined to provide the other votes needed for a simple continuing resolution that makes no policy changes, saying they first want Republicans and President Donald Trump to address health care premiums for people buying policies under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) that will skyrocket Jan. 1. Republicans have so far refused. You can read about that here.

The Trump White House put out a news release squarely laying the blame for the flight cancellations on Democrats, calling them “a brazen, demented betrayal of the American people.”

“Now, as FAA safety restrictions loom like a guillotine over holiday flights, Democrats are inflicting their man-made catastrophe on Americans just trying to make life-saving medical trips or get home for Thanksgiving,” the White House said.

Democrats appeared to be sticking to their message. On X, the feeds of Michigan’s Democratic U.S. senators, Elissa Slotkin and Gary Peters, didn’t mention the flight cancellations but both had messages up about the rising costs of health care. “This is the longest shutdown in history. I am working to try and bring this to a resolution, but we need the president to get in the game,” said Slotkin. “To be clear, I am insistent on fighting for people facing as much as a 600% increase in health care costs.”

Peters also went to the Senate floor in the afternoon to talk up a proposal by which Democrats would agree to reopen government if Republicans agree to extend health care subsidies for one year. “We could reopen the government today,” Peters said. But it was unclear where, if anywhere, the proposal was headed.

Asked about the possibility that widespread flight delays could expedite negotiations to reopen the government, U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Ann Arbor, said, “The air traffic controllers are what finally got the government open five years ago” during a partial shutdown that ended in January 2019.

Are you affected by flight cancellations related to the shutdown? Did you miss a big event, or have to reschedule something you’ve been planning for months? We’d love to hear from you at [email protected]. 

Free Press staff writer Clara Hendrickson contributed to this report.

Contact Todd Spangler: [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter@tsspangler.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: DTW flight cancellations appear to ramp up: What we know