Airport Delays and Cancellations

Floor Speech

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Mr. HIMES. Mr. Speaker, once again, this morning, thousands of Americans found themselves in airports staring at delayed and canceled flights. This comes barely 3 weeks after tens of thousands of Americans, and many of my own constituents, missed the holidays because of the catastrophe on the part of the airlines, the airlines that got billions of dollars in this Chamber from the American people barely 2 years ago. This is how the airlines repay the support that this institution gave to them so that they could get through COVID.

Now, the private markets will presumably address the failures of Southwest and other airlines. What happened this morning was a failure of government. The Notice to Air Missions is a function of the FAA.

I would like to point out that after last week, when we heard constant cries for cuts to the budget, understand, my friends, cuts to the budget means that we underinvest in the infrastructure that my constituents were relying on this morning. As we think about the budget in the next 2 years, let's remember what happened this morning.

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