Here It Is: Six-Hour Delays At Major Airports; I Do Not Recall Ever Seeing A President Do So Much To Frustrate The American Public

I blogged about this earlier this morning. Hardly needs repeating.

CBS is reporting:

Work furloughs involving air traffic controllers caused headaches around the nation for passengers Sunday.

Flights were delayed in many large hubs — up to three hours for some passengers.
LAX was also affected. The FAA’s website reported a “traffic [mis]management program” at LAX is causing “some arriving flights to be delayed an average of 3 hours and 7 minutes. To see if you may be affected, select your departure airport and check ‘Delays by Destination.’”

I dont' recall the immediate impact when Ronald Reagan fired ALL air traffic controllers, but the system survived. The current FAA administration knew about this sequester since October, 2012, and this is only a 2% budget cut. Something does not ring true.

Remember folks: it was the president who first suggested the sequester and then did not have the political skills to prevent it, and, of course, the Senate is controlled by his party. It was also the president who said he wanted his agencies to maximize the pain of the sequester. 

From an earlier post:

• Budget cuts threaten to worsen air delays. "Make the sequester as painful as possible." -- The President. "Never let a crisis go to waste." -- The President's chief of staff. And that's the kind of leadership we have in Washington.

Few flight delays were in evidence Sunday—on the first day of the furloughs of some air-traffic controllers under budget cuts required by the federal sequester—but delays could worsen as heavier traffic takes hold as early as Monday.

Pleasant weather mostly ruled across the country Sunday, usually not one of the busier travel days.

Later in the day, the Federal Aviation Administration warned of delays at New York's John F. Kennedy and La Guardia airports—two of the most congested facilities on any given day—due to "staffing" and other issues, according to an FAA website.

I travel through ORD (Chicago's O'Hare) later this week. I have a three-hour layover. I hope that's sufficient.

Looks like three hours will not be long enough.