Despite the federal government shutdown entering its second week, Columbia Regional Airport in central Missouri has not yet been negatively impacted.
“As of today, we have not seen any impacts with TSA screening or our local air traffic control tower, which is a contract tower,” said Airport Manager Michael Parks. “It’s contracted by Midwest ATC out of Kansas,” said Parks.
He told Missourinet that while his airport remains unaffected, the ripple effects may be reaching others across Missouri.
“We’ll make sure that we share that with the passengers if we feel like there is a potential impact, although there’s no impacts at this time to people in mid Missouri. What we do is we like to remind people to check your final destination as well you know are there impacts there,” said Parks.
Parks said the return of United Airlines flights has boosted traffic—and September’s numbers show the airport is soaring.
“United restarted service on September 25th,” said Parks. “I just got passenger numbers back from American Airlines for September.” Their numbers was just about 22,000 passengers for September flying in and out combined. That’s without United being thrown in there for that one week.”
With staffing shortages forcing delays at major airports from Chicago to Denver, and air traffic controllers working without pay amid rising stress, the federal government shutdown is now entering its second week.