Bills to pay FAA and TSA workers during shutdowns get introduced but keep stalling in Congress

A TSA agent works at Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, Friday, March 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Jae C.

Hong) 2026-03-28T12:54:14Z The Aviation Funding Solvency Act.

The Keep America Flying Act.

The Keep Air Travel Safe Act.

The Aviation Funding Stability Act.

Again and again, members of Congress have dusted off the same idea: ensuring the federal employees who control air traffic and screen passengers and bags at U.S. airports get paid during government shutdowns .

Bills to make it happen keep getting introduced in one form or another, sometimes with Democrats and Republicans as co-sponsors .

Yet session after session, the result has been the same — agencies receive their annual appropriations, public outrage over long security lines and flight delays fades, legislation languishes and workers have no guarantees their paychecks won’t stop coming again. “Once the crisis is over, people assume that the good times are back,” said Eric Chaffee, a Case Western Reserve law professor whose research includes risk management in the aviation industry. “It’s easy to pass the next big bill when you’re still in the throes of the financial crisis, but once the shutdown is done, people have a relatively short memory of the problems that it created.” Since 2019, after a partial shutdown that spanned the holiday travel season, lawmakers have drafted, revised and reintroduced multiple proposals to pay aviation workers who would have to keep reporting for duty in the event of another budget impasse.

The Aviation Funding Stability Act of 2019 — and 2021 and 2025 — and the bipartisan Aviation Funding Solvency Act introduced after a government shutdown last fall would protect the pay of air traffic controllers.

The Keep Air Travel Safe Act, filed in October, extended the protection to Transportation Security Administration agents .

The Keep America Flying Act, also from October, would cover both TSA personnel and certain Federal Aviation Administration employees.

Broader proposals, like the Shutdown Fairness Act introduced in January, would maintain the pay of essential federal workers across the U.S. government.

Those bills have stalled as well. “Congress cares about headlines, and as a result of that, it means they don’t always make changes that would be really beneficial,” Chaffee said.

Political gridlock Shutdowns that disrupt air travel have continued along with the push for aviation-specific pay protections.

The 35-day shutdown that arose over fundin

原文链接: AP News