Government shutdown will impact Thanksgiving travel

November 6, 2025 – WASHINGTON, D.C. – annually millions of Americans trek to Grandmother's house for Thanksgiving Dinner with family members. This year we are 38 days into the longest government shutdown in our nation's history.

U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) spoke on Thursday with Alabama reporters – including the Alabama Gazette about how that will impact Thanksgiving travel.

"I spoke with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy this morning and he confirmed that he is about to cut flights 10 percent," due to the shutdown Tuberville said. "That means that many people won't get to travel for the holidays or they will have to drive.....and that's not good given the roads in Alabama."

Millions of Americans travel for Thanksgiving each year. The federal government shutdown is now in its sixth week. Thousands of air traffic controllers and TSA agents have been working without pay leading to growing staffing shortages in a growing number of airports as employees are running out of money to pay for the gas to get to work.

With fewer TSA agents reporting to work lines to get through security in airports across the country have grown significantly.

Duffy confirmed that the FAA will scale back air traffic to maintain safety amid the rising absenteeism. Airports in New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, and Houston are among those affected. Atlanta is particularly important for Alabama because flights, even many of those who originate in Birmingham, often go to Atlanta to change flights to other destinations.

A ten percent cut in the number of flights will have an enormous ripple effect on the availability of flights. If the shutdown continues there could be additional cuts to the number of flights allowed to utilize our nation's airports.

Tuberville on Thursday said that he felt that the TSA and air traffic controller should be privatized as the public sector has shown itself to be so incredibly inefficient.

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