Upper Cumberland Regional Airport Director Dean Selby said the government shutdown has impacted operations, but he is more concerned with the long-term impact on airports.
Selby said the impact has been mostly delayed flights and essentially overworked air traffic controllers. Selby said his biggest concern from the shutdown is the backlog that has been created for things like environmental review and Air Space review cases with the FAA.
“Those have been suspended,” Selby said. “They are not even accepting new cases and have not since this shutdown started. So the backlog could linger for months, even years for us.”
Selby said anytime an airport builds a new facility or adds on to its facility, an airspace review must be conducted beforehand. Selby said an airspace review was a lengthy process even before the shutdown, as thousands of cases are submitted every day.
“I think what it will do is a lot of projects will take a lot longer to complete than they normally would have, which, as we all know, time equals money, so it adds to the total construction cost and has lots of other effects too,” Selby said. “Projects that are delayed that should not have been delayed, that are safety related, may take way longer than it would before.”
Selby said though his biggest concerns are more long-term, he does think the impact the shutdown has had on the airport has economically impacted the Upper Cumberland.
“We do know that we have seen changes in behavior, the way people travel, especially the corporate travelers, which is our bread and butter,” Selby said. “They have avoided a lot of the larger, major airports, and some of our largest companies are from those larger, heavier, bigger airports that come in and out of the Upper Cumberland. So yeah, we have probably seen a reduction in flights. It’s hard to say how much. You don’t know what you miss till it’s not there, but it’s obviously had an impact on everyone.”
With the Senate reaching a deal to reopen the government on Sunday, Selby said he is hopeful to see things return to normal.