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Air travel chaos gripped the United States on Monday as nearly 7,000 flights were delayed nationwide, with mounting staff shortages worsening the fallout from the federal government shutdown.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) blamed the disruption on widespread air traffic controller absences, forcing ground delay programmes at major airports including Newark in New Jersey, Austin in Texas, and Dallas Fort Worth International. Earlier in the day, flights in the southeast were also delayed due to staffing shortages at Atlanta’s radar control centre.

The shutdown — now in its 27th day — has left roughly 13,000 air traffic controllers and 50,000 Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers working without pay. The Trump administration has warned that flight disruptions are likely to intensify as employees miss their first full paycheck this week.

On Sunday alone, more than 8,800 flights were delayed. Flight-tracking data from FlightAware showed that Southwest Airlines saw 47% of its flights delayed, American Airlines 36%, United Airlines 27%, and Delta Air Lines 21%. The delays continued into Monday, affecting roughly one-third of all flights nationwide.

A Department of Transportation official said that 44% of Sunday’s delays were caused by controller absences — a stark jump from the usual 5%.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy met with air traffic controllers in Cleveland on Monday, while the National Air Traffic Controllers Association announced airport events nationwide to protest missed paychecks.

The FAA, already short about 3,500 controllers before the shutdown, had been relying on mandatory overtime and six-day workweeks to keep air traffic flowing.

The growing disruption has fuelled public frustration and renewed pressure on lawmakers to end the standoff. Observers fear that if the shutdown drags on, flight delays could soon rival those seen during the record 35-day government shutdown in 2019, when absences forced authorities to slow air traffic in New York and Washington.