While on Sunday night the Senate cleared a hurdle in reopening the government after eight Democrats voted to advance a plan without any Republican concessions on Affordable Care Act subsidies, the path to clearing House is expected to take several days and the cancelation of flights amid the airport staffing shortage continues.

On Nov. 10, airlines across the U.S. canceled 1,500 flights with lower traffic in particular amid the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)’s order to cut flight numbers by 10% at 40 of the busiest airports across the country. Cirium data estimates this to be over 5% of all flights expected to take off on Monday.

As one of the main three airlines affected, Fort Worth-based American Airlines confirmed that even travelers whose flights take off can expect to “experienc[e] additional and widespread delays and cancellations across the country.”

“Customers whose flights are canceled for any reason or who choose not to travel”

In an update on the situation published on November 9, American Airlines said that those whose flight was canceled flat-out can either wait to be contacted by the airline or go online to the airline’s site or app to reschedule it (for basic economy travelers, change fees are waived for anyone who booked the ticket before Nov. 5 and is traveling before Nov. 16).

“Disrupting customers’ plans is the last thing we want to do, and we have issued a travel waiver to provide additional flexibility during the impacted travel period,” American Airlines says in its statement. “Customers whose flights are canceled for any reason or who choose not to travel will be able to change their flight or request a refund without any penalty.”

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While travelers in lower fare classes are usually only able to rebook their flight at a later date, the uncontrollable nature of the situation has led American to open up the automatic refund option; it is one of the options that travelers can initiate automatically when looking at their booking.

The other conditions are that travelers with disrupted travel not change their origin and destination cities but either rebook on the same route or initiate a refund. At the moment, the last date for completing travel is set for Nov. 17 but this date could be extended if the government reopening is stalled or if travel disruptions continue.

All three major airlines have canceled hundreds of flights to comply with the FAA mandate.

American Airlines

“Federal aviation workers who continue working without pay”: American Airlines

According to the FAA, some disruption can be expected for weeks after the government officially reopens as many air traffic controllers and other airport staff have quit or gone into early retirement during the period of no pay.

The process of restarting routes even without enough staff to operate them will be a slow and gradual one as the country enters the busiest travel period of the year around Thanksgiving.

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“We’re deeply grateful to federal aviation workers who continue working without pay to keep our skies safe,” American Airlines said further in the rest of its statement. “This is unacceptable. We, once again, urge leaders in Washington, D.C., to reach an immediate resolution to end the shutdown.”

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