Is the government shutdown over? Update on the Senate vote and what it means for airports and airlines
This weekend, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate reached an agreement to reopen the U.S. government, more than a month into the shutdown.
The U.S. government’s record-breaking shutdown is not over yet - but it has finally moved a step closer to its conclusion.
How long has the shutdown lasted?
It is 41 days and counting since the government shut down on October 1, leading to the furloughing of around 670,000 workers at federal agencies, per the Bipartisan Policy Center. A further 730,000, who are deemed essential employees, have had to carry on working without pay, the BPC says.
The shutdown began after Republicans and Democrats in Congress were unable to agree on a new federal-funding bill by the end of September. GOP lawmakers, who do not have enough seats in the Senate to pass funding legislation without Democratic support, were unwilling to meet Democrats’ demands on healthcare spending.
So far, the shutdown has lasted six days longer than the U.S. government’s previous longest stoppage, which took place between December 2018 and January 2019.
On Sunday, however, a bill to reopen government gained the 60 votes it needed to advance beyond the debate stage in the Senate, after eight Democratic senators joined 52 Republicans in supporting the legislation.
Having met the upper chamber’s threshold to move to a final vote, the Continuing Appropriations Act now needs only a simply majority to pass the 100-seat Senate.
When could the Continuing Appropriations Act pass Congress?
This weekend’s progress in the Senate came after a group of centrist Democrats reached an agreement with Republicans to hold a vote later this year on extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies that are due to expire at the end of 2025.
The Continuing Appropriations Act, which would reopen government until January 30, 2026, and provide back pay to federal workers, must also pass the House of Representatives, in which Republicans hold a wafer-thin majority.
It is being reported that the bill wouldn’t be taken up by the House until Wednesday or Thursday at the earliest. If it passes Congress, the legislation must then go to President Donald Trump to be signed into law.
SNAP funding in new funding bill
In a statement on Sunday, Republican senator Susan Collins, who is the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the Continuing Appropriations Act would also include “full-year appropriations” for programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
The shutdown has led the federally-funded food-stamps scheme, which serves around 42 million Americans, to be limited to partial benefits payments in November.
What about the shutdown airport chaos?
In recent days, the government shutdown’s impact on air-traffic controllers has led to travel chaos across the U.S.
Deemed essential federal employees, air-traffic controllers have had to continue operating unpaid since the start of October, leading to what the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has described as growing “staffing triggers”.
There have been reports of under-strain controllers taking sick leave or even resorting to getting second jobs to pay their bills.
In response, the FAA has told airlines to reduce their operations at 40 major airports throughout the U.S. In a statement on Thursday, the agency ordered an initial 4% drop in operations, rising to 10% on Friday, November 14. Thousands of flights have been cancelled: across Saturday and Sunday, nearly 5,500 were scrapped, per the flight-tracking website Flight Aware.
And experts are warning that an end to the shutdown won’t immediately allow the U.S.’s stricken air-travel industry to return to full working order.
Speaking to USA Today, Hopper analyst Haley Berg said: “It’s not that the day the shutdown ends, this capacity restriction is lifted. The qualifier is that they’re not going to lift this capacity reduction until air traffic control and FAA are operating at the staffing level […].
“That might not happen immediately once these employees are paid and have had their time off.”
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