By: June Swingle, Buzz Staff Writer
SAU freshman, Drew Ballard, says he’s looking forward to returning home to Colorado for the holiday break. He says flying home is the safest option, especially with over a foot of snow on the ground in the Quad Cities. “I will be flying back as winter driving can be very dangerous.”
But even as air travel returns to normal following the government shutdown, Drew says he remains skeptical. “The thought of not being able to go home or getting home and not being able to come back to the school with my friends is also worrying.”
Drew is not the only one experiencing this wariness. Media and Public Relations Professor Elizabeth Lareau says that after seeing so many travel cancellations and weather delays, her daughter, a captain in the Army, switched from flying to traveling by train from Washington D.C. to Moline for the holidays. “She’s more confident she’ll actually get home in a reasonable time frame than waiting in airports,” Lareau says.
It has been less than a month since the FAA and DOT announced the cancellation of the emergency order to reduce all flights after the government reopened. Now that staffing numbers are returning to what they were before the shutdown, the FAA says it is safe to set things back to business as usual. For weeks, air traffic controllers and TSA agents were not paid during the government shutdown.
While air travel was able to mostly “return to normal” in time before Thanksgiving, many students say they are still concerned for the reliability of air travel going forward.
The air travel issues are also leading to a growing lack of trust in the government. SAU senior Vinnie DeVore, an art history and museum studies major says, “I am concerned about the integrity of leaders, to put it nicely.”
Similarly, Alexis Hill, a junior in biology, adds, “I think it’s unfair and insane to not pay smaller scale government workers while politicians continue to make money themselves. It is not the fault of TSA agents that the government shut down.
“I think that there will be ultimately more caution within those traveling by plane, but ultimately, the shutdown will affect more than just travelers. And a greater negative effect on the common people will lead to a negative outlook on those in charge…if they didn’t think so already.”
Drew adds, “This situation shows the lack of steadiness within the government and their ability to make decisions within a reasonable timeframe. This increases the already uneasy lack of faith within the people.”
