NATION
Saturday, January 19, 2019
East Oregonian
A11
Travel industry fears damage from a long shutdown
By DAVID KOENIG
and CHRISTOPHER
RUGABER
Associated Press
ATLANTA — America’s
busiest airport, Atlanta’s
Hartsfield-Jackson Interna-
tional, is a blur of activity on
the best of days. But an extra
layer of anxiety gripped the
airport Friday, the eve of a
three-day holiday weekend.
The partial government
shutdown — the longest ever
— has thinned the ranks of
federal workers who staff
airport security lines. And
some travelers had braced
for the worst.
“I have a 3 o’clock flight,
and I arrived at 10:15 a.m.
(EST),” Beth Lambert said
while waiting to check in
at a Delta Air Lines counter
as her 5-year-old, Michael,
rode around on his wheeled
bag like a scooter. “We’re
going to be hanging out for
a while.”
The scene at most of
the nation’s airports has
so far been marked more
by concerned passengers
showing up early than by
missed flights. Longer lines
are evident at some airports.
But delays resulting from
a rise in federal security
screeners calling in sick
have been slight.
Yet concern is quickly
growing. President Donald
Trump and Democrats
in Congress remain far
apart over Trump’s insis-
tence on funding for a wall
along the Mexican border
as the price of reopening
the government. With the
two sides trading taunts
and avoiding talks, travel
industry analysts and econ-
omists have been calcu-
lating the potential damage
should the shutdown drag
into February or beyond.
Airlines and hotels would
suffer. So would parks and
restaurants that cater to
travelers. And, eventually,
the broader U.S. economy,
already absorbing a trade
war with China and a global
economic slowdown, would
AP Photo/Lynne Sladky
Passengers wait in line at a security checkpoint at Miami International Airport on Friday in Miami. The three-day holiday
weekend is likely to bring bigger airport crowds.
endure another blow.
The travel and tourism
industries generate about
$1.6 trillion in U.S. economic
activity — one-twelfth of
the economy — and one in
20 jobs, according to the
Commerce
Department.
Macroeconomic Advisers
says it now expects the
economy to expand at just
a 1.4 percent annual rate in
the first three months of this
year, down from its previous
forecast of 1.6 percent,
because of reduced govern-
ment spending during the
shutdown.
America’s
air-travel
system will face its sternest
test this weekend, which
coincides with Martin
Luther King Jr. Day on
Monday, a federal holiday.
The Transportation Secu-
rity Administration predicts
it will screen over 8 million
passengers between Friday
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weekend. And it will do so
with fewer screeners. On
Thursday, the TSA said 6.4
percent of screeners missed
work — nearly double the
3.8 percent rate on the same
day in 2018.
A TSA spokesman said
the agency was offering
overtime to screeners for
this weekend, though those
workers wouldn’t be paid —
for their regular pay or for
overtime— until the shut-
down eventually ends.
On top of potentially
longer airport security lines
this weekend, a blast of
winter weather could snarl
travel this weekend in the
Midwest and Northeast.
Har tsf ield-Jackson
Atlanta International, home
to Delta Air Lines, has
likely been the hardest hit
airport. Delta said this week
that the shutdown will cost
it $25 million in January
because
fewer
federal
employees and contractors
will be flying. By contrast,
United Airlines, which has a
substantial presence around
Washington, D.C., said it
hasn’t felt much impact yet.
But the airlines fear that
if the shutdown doesn’t end
soon, more TSA agents
will call in sick or quit. A
shortage of screeners would
cause security lines to swell.
Air traffic controllers, who
are also working without
pay, say they, too, are short-
staffed. If the controller
shortage became severe
enough, the government
could restrict the number of
flights, though some analysts
think that’s unlikely.
“Luckily this is the low
season — January is one of
the weakest months of the
year,” said Savanthi Syth, an
329
$
airline analyst for Raymond
James. “This spilling into
February is a real concern.
The risk is that the longer
this drags out, it might cause
some passengers to say, ‘I
don’t want to deal with all
the hassle, maybe I won’t
take that trip.’”
Consumers are, in fact,
taking a dimmer view of the
economy, in part because of
the shutdown. A measure
of consumer confidence
fell this month by the most
in more than six years,
according to the Univer-
sity of Michigan, which
conducts the survey. If
Americans were to cut back
on travel and other discre-
tionary spending, it would
weaken consumer spending,
the U.S. company’s primary
fuel.
Laura Mandala, who
runs a travel and tourism
research firm, said the shut-
down might discourage
international travelers, too.
“These uncertainties will
result in fewer conferences
being booked,” Mandala
said, leading to “conven-
tion and hotel staff layoffs,
reduced schedules, resulting
in less income for workers to
spend in the local economy.”
Hotels are starting to
feel the impact, particu-
larly in the Washington,
D.C., region but also in
other cities with substantial
federal workforces, such as
San Diego, which has a large
naval base.
In the Washington area,
including its nearby suburbs
in Maryland and Virginia,
hotel revenue plunged 26
percent in the second week
of January compared with
the same period last year,
according to STR, a travel
research firm. That’s much
steeper than the 8 percent
decline
that
occurred
nationwide.
Michael Bellisario, an
analyst for investment bank
R.W. Baird, suggested that
other factors accounted for
the most of the nationwide
drop but said the shutdown
almost certainly played a
role.
“In no way is the govern-
ment shutdown a positive for
hotel demand and travel,”
Bellisario said.
If the shutdown lingers
and people see more reports
of long TSA lines on tele-
vision news, “they will say,
‘Oh wow, traveling is hard,’
and that impacts the hotel
industry,” said Jan Freitag, a
senior vice president at STR.
For now, though, the
most visible impact has been
at airports. One of the seven
checkpoints at Houston’s
main airport has been closed
all week and will remain so
indefinitely, a spokesman
said. Miami closed one
concourse during the after-
noons and evenings last
weekend. On the other hand,
officials at airports in New
York, Los Angeles, Chicago
and Miami said they weren’t
experiencing any problems.
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