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As the Trump shutdown ends, cheers for air travel workers echo across Twitter

Federal aviation workers woke up on Saturday to an outpouring of gratitude for the key role their unions played in ending Trump's shutdown.

Adam Rosenberg

on January 26, 2019

As the Trump shutdown ends, cheers for air travel workers echo across Twitter

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Julio Cortez/AP/REX/Shutterstock (10073302g) A Southwest Airlines jet cruises by on the runway as a person eats at a terminal restaurant at LaGuardia Airport, in New York. The Federal Aviation Administration reported delays in air travel Friday because of a "slight increase in sick leave" at two East Coast air traffic control facilities Government Shutdown Airport Delays, New York, USA - 25 Jan 2019 Credit: Julio Cortez/AP/REX/Shutterstock

Donald Trump's record-setting partial shutdown of the U.S. government -- which kept roughly 800,000 federal workers unpaid for more than a month -- is finally over. Don't forget to thank your flight attendants.

In the end, no one person or group is solely responsible for making Trump back off the U.S.-Mexico border wall demand that left portions of American society crippled for more than a month. But on the shutdown's 35th day, hours before it finally ended, headlines were dominated by news of disrupted travel plans.

Air travel was one of the many categories of American life impacted by the shutdown. Air traffic controllers are federal workers, and as safety professionals, their work is deemed essential. So they were still putting in their usual hours, but they were doing it without pay.

Flight attendants work for private interests -- they're airline employees -- but they're also the ones who are most at risk as the infrastructure responsible for keeping planes in the air breaks down. There are Federal Aviation Administration rules requiring flight attendants to be present on planes of a certain size.

In other words: flight attendants may not have been furloughed, but they had what could accurately be described as a vested interest in easing the strain the shutdown placed on air traffic controllers.

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The quiet finally broke on Friday. Faced with growing reports of air travel interruptions, representatives from the flight attendant and air traffic controller unions sounded an urgent alarm: fix this immediately or planes are going to start crashing.

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Hours later, the shutdown was over. It wasn't some bargaining breakthrough brokered by President Trump's fabled acumen as a deal-maker. Rather, it was the country's month-long transformation into trembling, overstuffed pressure cooker.

As many observers pointed out in the hours that followed, the final straw broke across the back of angry, exhausted aviation workers.

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Here's a final word from Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA and absolute boss of this moment.

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UPDATED Jan. 26, 2019, 12:31 p.m. ET: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified flight attendants as federal workers. Flight attendants work for the airlines, and their shutdown frustrations stem from a declining sense of safety as air traffic controllers increasingly felt the strain of absent paychecks. We apologize for the error, and have updated this story to make the distinction clearer.

Topics Donald Trump Politics

Adam Rosenberg

Adam Rosenberg is a Senior Games Reporter for Mashable, where he plays all the games. Every single one. From AAA blockbusters to indie darlings to mobile favorites and browser-based oddities, he consumes as much as he can, whenever he can.Adam brings more than a decade of experience working in the space to the Mashable Games team. He previously headed up all games coverage at Digital Trends, and prior to that was a long-time, full-time freelancer, writing for a diverse lineup of outlets that includes Rolling Stone, MTV, G4, Joystiq, IGN, Official Xbox Magazine, EGM, 1UP, UGO and others.Born and raised in the beautiful suburbs of New York, Adam has spent his life in and around the city. He's a New York University graduate with a double major in Journalism and Cinema Studios. He's also a certified audio engineer. Currently, Adam resides in Crown Heights with his dog and his partner's two cats. He's a lover of fine food, adorable animals, video games, all things geeky and shiny gadgets.