FAA opens probe into shutdown-era flight cuts

FAA opens probe into shutdown-era flight cuts

The FAA has opened a formal investigation into whether major US airlines complied with its November 2025 emergency order to cut flights at 40 of the nation’s busiest airports during the 43-day federal government shutdown. Airlines that got the letter have 30 days to show they followed the required limits, and possible penalties could reach $75,000 per flight. The review covers carriers including United, Delta, American, Southwest, JetBlue and others, and airports including New York JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, Chicago O’Hare, Atlanta, Denver, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
The practical traveler takeaway: this is the part where the mess gets paperwork.

Gobble's Take: If your flight vanished in the shutdown chaos, the FAA is now checking whether the schedule cuts were actually followed.
Source: Aerotime

Flight cancellations were already piling up during the shutdown

More than 1,500 flights within, into or out of the U.S. were canceled as of early Monday, with another 1,400 delayed. That followed more than 2,900 cancellations and over 10,000 delays on Sunday, plus over 1,000 cancellations on Friday and more than 1,500 on Saturday. On Sunday, nearly 2,200 flights were canceled, with Delta Airlines logging more than 500 cancellations. Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta had more than 570 cancellations, followed by Newark Liberty International Airport with at least 265.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned the situation could “be reduced to a trickle” if the shutdown continued, and said many people hoping to get home for Thanksgiving might not be able to get on an airplane if it did not reopen.

Gobble's Take: When the cancellations are stacking up by the thousand, “travel plan” becomes “travel hope.”
Source: CBS News

JetBlue’s holiday meltdown looked like weather, but the numbers say otherwise

Winter Storm Devin was not the whole story for JetBlue. The source says the storm exposed a system that lacked redundancy, resilience, and recovery capacity, and that JetBlue was failing a live stress test operationally, financially, and organizationally. While United and American reported cancellation rates around 5% or less, JetBlue canceled approximately 22% of its schedule. FlightAware figures cited in the source say JetBlue canceled 225–350 flights over Friday and Saturday alone, against a fleet of roughly 283 aircraft and approximately 1,000 daily flights.
The source also says these were the same airports—JFK, LGA, and EWR—under identical weather conditions.

Gobble's Take: Weather may have lit the fuse, but this looked like an airline whose recovery room was already full.
Source: Substack

Long-haul low-cost flying still looks brutally hard

AirAsia X took delivery of its first long-range narrowbody aircraft in early May, and plans to pivot away from its A330-300 fleet over time and use A321-200NX(XLR) narrowbodies to connect South-East Asia with Europe, Africa, and North America with one stop. Meanwhile, Norse Atlantic Airways is now looking for buyers. The source says the Norway-based carrier has never made profit since it launched in 2021, lost €61.9 million in 2025, and has relied on unconventional moves like a long-term damp-lease agreement with India’s IndiGo Airlines. It also says the business remains a very difficult niche for widebody long-haul low-cost operators.
The old lesson apparently still needs repeating, because apparently airlines love a hard lesson.

Gobble's Take: The low-cost dream gets much less dreamy once the flight is long enough to need actual economics.
Source: Substack

In Case You Missed It

Yesterday's top stories:

• Zenith Airlines loses its AOC and all flights are grounded
• Spirit Airlines shuts down and cancels all flights
• DOT’s cancellation-delay dashboard tells you what an airline has committed to provide
• FAA orders flight cuts at 40 major airports