According to aviation analytics firm Cirium and airline authorities, U.S. airlines have cut considerably fewer flights for Friday than the mandate that they cut 6% of domestic flights at the 40 largest American airports.
Late on Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that it will not increase cancelation requirements as previously announced and would instead freeze mandated flight reduction at 6%.
According to Cirium, airlines have only canceled 1.4% of all flights for Friday after canceling about 3.5% of all flights on Wednesday and Thursday.
The FAA may amend the ruling, and airlines may still add cancellations. After canceling 222 flights on Thursday, United Airlines reported that it had canceled 134 flights for Friday, or over 3% of its total.
The FAA refrained from commenting right away. On condition of anonymity, several airlines informed Reuters that they had no intention of reducing flights by 6% on Friday.
Airlines were anticipated to cancel 10% of flights at the 40 busiest airports and 8% of domestic flights on Thursday prior to the FAA's updated decision.
Just before Congress gave final approval to an agreement to reopen the government, which President Donald Trump swiftly signed into law, the FAA decided on Wednesday to soften those cancellations after disruptions caused by air traffic control absences drastically decreased in recent days.
"The 6% hold will remain in place as the FAA continues to assess whether the system can gradually return to normal operations," the agency said on Wednesday.
Airlines canceled 1,020 flights on Thursday under the FAA's 6% requirement, according to FlightAware, a flight-tracking website. Cirium said carriers by 4:20 p.m. ET had only canceled 371 flights for Friday.
The FAA said on Thursday it was reporting staffing issues at Reagan Washington National and Newark airports, which were resulting in delays at both airports, but there were far fewer issues than before the government reopening.
About 3,500 air traffic controllers are missing from the FAA's intended staffing levels. Even before to the shutdown, many had been working unpaid overtime and six day work weeks.
According to FlightAware, flight operations are becoming better, with only 3,000 delays on Thursday as opposed to 4,000 on Tuesday and almost 10,000 on Monday.
Since the 43 day shutdown started on October 1, tens of thousands of flights have been canceled or delayed due to air traffic issues.
