The nation’s airport security force continues struggling to find enough workers, creating longer-than-normal wait times at some of the busiest US airports over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. The TSA screened 2.18m people Monday, the close of the 3-day holiday weekend, and 4 airports had wait times that exceeded 30 minutes, according to the agency. Airports including Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota; Newark, New Jersey; Seattle and Baltimore have had repeated issues during the weekend. Monday, 7.5% of TSA screeners failed to show up for work, the agency said. That figure was down from Sunday’s 10% absentee rate, but remains well above norms and has been increasing on average. “Many employees are reporting that they are not able to report to work due to financial limitations,” the agency said. <br/>
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Flights in and out of New Jersey Newark Liberty International were disrupted Tuesday night after reports of a drone flying near Teterboro Airport. Initially, the FAA said there were reports of 2 drones. Later, they said there were 2 reports of 1 drone. The reports came from the flight crew of a Southwest flight and of a United flight. An FAA spokesman said that the agency stopped flights at the airport after the initial report over the smaller regional airport some 15 miles away. Both airports serve the greater metro New York City area. The drone was reportedly flying at 3,500 feet and has since cleared the airspace over the airport, the spokesman said. Flights have since resumed, the FAA and the airport said. <br/>
On the 31st day of the partial govt shutdown, representatives of two major aviation unions warned that mass flight cancelations could soon occur if the shutdown continues to drag on. Sara Nelson, the international president of the Association of Flight Attendants, outlined the shutdown’s consequences on the country’s aviation system. “And as this starts to crumble and unravel, we’re going to see mass flight cancelations, we’re going to see a system that completely unravels and falls apart,” she said. “This is going to have a massive economic impact”. A spokesperson for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association echoed the same sentiment, saying the aviation industry, already under pressure and understaffed, could soon see staffers walking off the job. <br/>
The eastern Chinese city of Fuzhou is offering the country’s airlines subsidies of at least CNY300,000 (US$44,000) per flight on new routes to most North America destinations as part of a broad effort to support carriers using its airport. Services on new intercontinental routes to nearer destinations will be eligible for subsidies of at least CNY200,000 per flight, according to a policy document for 2019 the city released Jan 15. Like other Chinese cities, Fuzhou is willing to help pay for additional direct domestic flights to economically important destinations—in this case, CNY30,000 per flight to Beijing, Guangzhou and Chengdu. The subsidy of at least CNY300,000 per flight is available for new intercontinental routes of more than 10,000 km, which excludes Australian and European destinations except Spain. <br/>