FAA personnel from Las Vegas to New York have tested positive in the last week, prompting closures while buildings were cleaned and creating delays even in this depressed environment for flights
Sandy Murdock, who was chief counsel for the FAA during the Reagan administration, noted, however, that the agency was able to handle the air traffic controller strike in 1981 as well as a fire at a major center near Chicago in 2014.
However, the drop in demand for air travel will "reduce the pressure to have the same level of operations," Murdock added. "So there may be supply and demand offsetting each other equally for basically the same reason -- sick people in the control towers and people not getting into the airplanes." center has to be closed for several weeks, or if two centers in the same region are shut down at the same time. Such disruptions would be mitigated by fewer planes being in the sky, but the controller said as of Friday he hadn’t yet seen air traffic decline by much, even though airline bookings have fallen dramatically.
“Each disruption has a distinct impact on the air traffic system,” the agency added. “We are experiencing this at the handful of facilities already affected by COVID-19. This is frustrating and inconvenient, but is necessary in the interest of safety.”
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