our officers are going to get the paychecks that they ve earned, that they ve worked for protecting the traveling public for the last month. we re also very concerned that this is only a temporary measure, and we could be right back here in the same situation three weeks from now. and we re tired of that. reporter: the national air traffic controllers association issued a statement saying although the news today is positive, we must not lose focus on the short-term nature of this agreement and the need to continue to make our voice heard to avoid another shutdown on february 15, 2019. throughout the shutdown federal agencies say they ve been consolidating resources to continue providing services without compromising passenger safety, but yesterday staffing shortages at faa control centers along the east coast caused major flight delays at new york s laguardia airport which, of course, had a ripple effect throughout the system, also impacting some of the flights coming into and out of
recovering from missing two paychecks. but there are a lot of helping hands pitching in. southwest airlines has opened a food pantry at the airport for federal employees. other airlines and an airport food vendor are pitching into that. a local credit union offered tsa employees free gas at nearby service stations. nationwide, many federal airport workers have mixed feelings about the temporary end to the shutdown. we re a month behind on our bills already. so - and we don t know exactly when our paychecks are going to catch up and then having another three weeks where we re worried about being in the same situation we re in now, it s demoralizing. it s unfair. it s cruel. reporter: the national air traffic controllers association issued a statement saying although the news today is positive, we must not lose focus on the short-term nature of the
the weekend. we know that there are delays. we are working to get information about this. due to staffing issues at a regional air traffic control center, it will have a major impact. we ll stay on this for you guys. it is three airports. if you were to pick three to disrupt traffic at and cause problems it might be la guardia, philadelphia and newark. joining us is executive vice president of the national air traffic controllers association. thank you for joining us now. i know you have a lot on your plate. this is a direct result of the shutdown? absolutely. you know, i was on your show. i thank you for having us last week. we predicted that you cannot continue to operate a system this complex for this long without the support structure of the people that are furloughed. we are already short staffed. now you have added the stress to
as you point out, kind of reached a hotter pitch today. a higher pitch with laguardia declaring that ground stop. air traffic control. i looked at the report, it said that other/staffing issues for that. martha: like i said, that s something that starts to impact the rest of the country. god forbid something happens, if there s any kind of mishap that can be traced back to this shutdown. that is politically very dangerous position for the president and for nancy pelosi, frankly, to be in. because they both have sort of been the ones dug in on this shutdown. they need to come to some kind of conclusion. there was always excitement yesterday, though the ground is starting to move because chuck schumer and mitch mcconnell are talking to each other. the two of them could come to some kind of agree with how much would a problem. but they re not the people who can actually say yes or no to that. it s present jumping nancy pelosi who remain at opposite ends. harris: the national air tra
verge of being over. perhaps we are going to see much shorter lines in the days approaching the super bowl, dana. dana: john, thank you in atlanta. let s bring in paul reynold d, air traffic controllers association, good to have you here. you are in the green room listening to the president speech. giving that given the stress that furlough workers have been under, do you think that they wl have a little bit of relief now? paul: absolutely commit his euphoria. they have been going through struggling times and i ve heard some sad stories of decisions that had to be made and pursing out medication to putting food on the table. and i came to work, filled up my gas tank dana: and even people trying to find second jobs, year of our things like that? paul: of the working environment, we can t have