The CEO of Delta, the world’s largest airline by market cap, said he and his company are “outraged” TSA agents continue to work without pay as the partial government shutdown drags into its fifth week.
CEO Ed Bastian, in an interview with CNBC Tuesday, specifically called out representatives in Washington, D.C., telling them to “do their job.”
“It’s inexcusable that our security agents, our frontline agents, that are essential to what we do, are not being paid, and it’s ridiculous to see them being used as political chips,” he said.
Thanks in part to staffing issues, airlines canceled more than 1,000 flights Tuesday and delayed 4,200 others, PBS News reported citing flight-tracking website FlightAware. Long security lines also accumulated at major U.S. airports such as Delta’s main hub Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport, where travelers were encouraged to arrive three hours before their scheduled departure time, CBS reported. The TSA disruption has added to airport chaos spurred by the Iran war and severe storms in the past week.
Bastian’s comments come as he joined the CEOs of other U.S. airlines including American, Southwest, and JetBlue, in signing a public letter asking Congress “to move forward on bipartisan proposals” that will pay TSA agents, as well as U.S. customs clearing officers, and air traffic controllers. The letter cited a poll by data-science company AlphaROC earlier in March, which found 93% of Americans support paying agents from the Transportation Security Agency who ensure airport security during shutdowns.
The issue is all the more pressing, Bastian added in the interview, because of the war in Iran which has shown no signs of letting up in its third week. In fact, Iran’s military joint command Wednesday reiterated a warning Tehran would escalate the war in “new ways” if its energy facilities are attacked following a strike on its processing facilities in the South Pars gas field, the world’s largest natural gas reservoir.
“It’s outrageous,” Bastian said of TSA workers not being paid. “We got a war going on. Let’s get our people, that are people that are essential to our security, paid.”
Delta did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
Standing in the way of TSA agents being paid is a stalemate between Democrats and Republicans in Washington that has withheld funding exclusively for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the TSA. Democrats are seeking reforms to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, after immigration officials killed two people earlier this year. Republicans meanwhile have blocked Democrat-introduced bills that would fund the TSA separately.
The results have already rippled through airports nationwide. Even as airport security agents missed their first full paycheck over the weekend, 50,000 are required to keep working without pay and will only receive backpay once funding is restored.
Without a paycheck, the number of TSA agents calling out of work has surged with unscheduled absences hitting an average of 6% of workers absent, compared to 2% absent prior to the shutdown, CBS News reported citing DHS figures. Some 300 workers have instead opted to quit the TSA since the partial shutdown began on Feb. 14, according to the DHS’s X account. During the longest government shutdown in history last year, TSA agents went without pay for about 43 days and around 1,100 quit, former TSA administrator John Pistole told CBS News.
These agents, who make between $46,000 to $55,000 on average, are facing financial hardships as they go without pay for the second long stretch in six months, said Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, one of the largest unions representing federal employees.
“During the last government shutdown, the longest in American history, TSA officers went through 3.5 pay periods without a paycheck. Some were evicted. Some had their cars repossessed. Some had to send their children to live with relatives because they could no longer afford childcare,” Kelley said in a statement to Fortune. “Now, politicians are putting them through it again, and the long lines travelers are starting to see are a direct result.”
Bastian, for his part, downplayed any effect of the partial shutdown on long lines or delays for passengers, saying, “we’ll figure that out.” The real issue, he said, is the unfairness in how security agents are being treated.
“These people miss paychecks. Just a few months ago, they’re missing paychecks again,” he said. “It’s outrageous.”
