How National Flight Reductions Will Impact Wisconsin Travelers

Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport. Image from the airport.

Every Thanksgiving, Cheryl Peralez’s daughter flies out of Milwaukee to Charlotte, North Carolina, to spend time with family for the holiday.

This year, Peralez, a Cudahy resident, is worried her daughter’s flight later this month may be canceled due to the ongoing government shutdown. She is now wondering if she’ll have to drive instead of flying.

“If it is canceled, then I will end up having to miss at least one day of work to come up with a plan … to drive her down either to Tennessee or Kentucky to meet my brother,” Peralez said.

“The drive, I don’t mind, but given the price of gas and how everything is going up in price …  it kind of sucks,” she added.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is cutting flights by 10 percent at 40 “high traffic” airports, according to a Thursday statement from the FAA. The flight reductions, which started on Friday, could soon lead to 4,000 cancellations a day, according to a CNBC report.

No airports in Wisconsin are among those directly hit by flight reductions, but the decision will likely have ripple effects on air travel around the country.

Some of the airports directly impacted include O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport, Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in Detroit, Los Angeles International Airport, Charlotte-Douglas International Airport and LaGuardia Airport in New York.

Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee had three reported flight cancellations as of Friday afternoon, according to FlightAware. A Thursday statement from Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, which he posted to X, said flights are “expected to remain on schedule” at Mitchell.

“However, this can quickly change if the government shutdown prolongs,” Crowley wrote.

Michael Riechers, director of communications for the Dane County Regional Airport, said in an email that the national flight reduction “may indirectly affect travel through Madison, as many of our nonstop destinations are among the 40 impacted markets.”

Joan Smith, a resident of Olympia, Washington, was in Milwaukee for a work conference this week. Friday morning, she was waiting to board her flight at Mitchell, headed to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Smith said she’s happy her flight was not canceled but she’s still worried about delays.

“I think I’ll probably be unhappy when I get up in the air and they say something like, ‘we’re going to have to circle the airport for three hours,’” Smith said. “But no, I think it’ll be fine.”

There were 202 cancellations for domestic flights or flights into or out of the United States on Thursday, according to FlightAware. That number rose to 996 as of late Friday afternoon.

Julio Guerrero, a West Allis resident, is flying out of O’Hare next week for a trip to Mexico City with his 8-year-old daughter for her birthday. He’s not sure if his flight will be canceled but he’s already preparing for the worst.

“Well, I planned a 10-day trip,” Guerrero said. “Will it end up being a 10-day trip? We don’t really know.”

Scott Kirby, the CEO of United Airlines, issued a statement Wednesday saying there will be “rolling updates to our schedule” in the coming days. Some airlines, including United Airlines and American Airlines, are allowing for full refunds for customers.

Laura Albert, a professor of industrial and systems engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said all the uncertainty could affect airline and travel revenue. “I expect many (travelers) will proactively cancel their plans, or if a flight’s canceled, maybe they don’t rebook it, they just cancel the trip entirely.”

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Here’s how national flight reductions are impacting travelers in Wisconsin was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.