James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
11:34 A.M. EST
MR. CARNEY: I just want to say that it is my pleasure, and clearly yours, to have with me today the Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood, who is here to speak with you about the impacts of sequester, if it comes to pass, on the American travel industry.
And as we’ve talked about a lot, the indiscriminate, deep cuts will affect everyone, really, in America, and industries. And Secretary LaHood is here to discuss one aspect of that with you and to take some questions. And afterwards, I’ll be here to take questions on other issues.
I just want to remind you that we’re on a slightly constrained time schedule. We have the President’s meeting with national governors — Democratic governors, and then also the pool spray with the Prime Minister of Japan.
With that, I turn it over to Secretary LaHood.
SECRETARY LAHOOD: Sequester will be a very — will have a very serious impact on the transportation services that are critical to the traveling public and to the nation’s economy. At DOT, we will need to cut nearly a billion dollars, which will affect dozens of our programs. Over $600 million of these cuts will need to come from the Federal Aviation Administration, the agency that controls and manages our nation’s skies.
As a result of these cuts, the vast majority of FAA’s nearly 47,000 employees will be furloughed for approximately one day per pay period until the end of the fiscal year, and in some cases it could be as many as two days.
Today we are sharing more details with our unions and with industry so they can start planning for serious impacts of sequester. Here is what these automatic cuts are going to mean for the traveling public.
Obviously, as always, safety is our top priority, and we will never allow the amount of air travel we can handle safely to take off and land, which means travelers should expect delays. Flights to major cities like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco and others could experience delays of up to 90 minutes during peak hours because we have fewer controllers on staff. Delays in these major airports will ripple across the country.
Cuts to budgets mean preventative maintenance and quick repair of runway equipment might not be possible, which could lead to more delays. And once airlines see the potential impact of these furloughs, we expect that they will change their schedules and cancel flights.
So we are beginning today discussions with our unions to likely close more than 100 air traffic control towers at airports with fewer than 150,000 flight operations per year. And we’re talking about places like Boca Raton, Florida; Joplin, Missouri; Hilton Head, South Carolina; and San Marcos, Texas. The list of the towers — the list of potential towers that are to be closed, or elimination of midnight shifts, is posted on our …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at The White House Press Office