Air Traffic Controllers Warn Against Another Shutdown

The nation’s air traffic control system “is less safe than it was on Dec. 21,” the president of the major air traffic controllers union warned on Tuesday. “The system is on the verge of unraveling, and we sounded the bell,” Paul Rinaldi, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, told a luncheon gathering of the Aero Club of Washington, D.C. He blasted Congress and the White House for a “political tug-of-war” that brought about the five-week partial government shutdown and set back the long-term agenda of the aviation industry and related agencies.