WASHINGTON — With the federal government open for business again, air traffic controllers can finally get paid for all the work they performed during the 43 days of the shutdown.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says that will happen promptly, with controllers receiving the bulk of their back pay within days.
But some air traffic controllers have not forgotten the last government shutdown in 2018 and 2019, when dozens of controllers sued the federal government for overtime and other compensation they said they were owed.
That lawsuit eventually resulted in a settlement, but it took years. One current air traffic controller told NPR they didn't receive a check from that agreement until this year — just weeks before the government shutdown once again in October.
"I just got a $400 check, just, like, maybe a week before the shutdown, that was from that 2019 shutdown," said a controller who handles high-altitude traffic at a facility in the Midwest. He asked NPR to withhold his name because he's afraid of retaliation from the Federal Aviation Administration.
This controller says the FAA did a poor job of tracking overtime and shift differentials during the prior shutdown, and he's dreading the task of calculating how much he is owed this time.
"It's just a nightmare," the controller said, "trying to make sure we get paid back correctly for all of our differentials and overtime."
In remarks this week, Secretary Duffy described a much speedier process for controllers to get their back pay this time around.
"In this package to reopen the government, our controllers could be paid within 48 hours of the government opening," Duffy told reporters in Wisconsin on Tuesday. "They'll get a big lump sum of what they're due, which is helpful. They don't have to wait another two weeks to be paid."
Air traffic controllers missed two full paychecks over the last six weeks, as well as part of a third. Duffy said this week that controllers would receive 70% of their pay within 48 hours of the government reopening, with the remaining 30% about a week after the first payment.
"So I encourage all of them to come to work to be patriots and help navigate the airspace effectively for the American people," Duffy said at a press conference Tuesday in Chicago.
Still, some controllers are wary.
"On the last one, we weren't properly paid out," said one current controller who works arriving and departing traffic at a major U.S. airport, who also asked NPR not to use his name out of fear of retaliation from the FAA.
"Our pay has all these differentials and adjustments in it. Overtime, night pay, Sunday pay, training pay, all different kinds of stuff that you can get," the controller said. "So I sat and I calculated for the whole 35-day shutdown what that should work out to. And I had to do that all by hand, which, you know, sucked."
"I wasn't made whole until May, and the shutdown ended in January," the controller said.
Some controllers had to wait even longer. Dozens of controllers sued in 2019, alleging that the government withheld overtime and other pay in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
"Plaintiffs, and those similarly situated, even to this date, have not received any payment for overtime work they performed during the FAA's lapse in appropriations," lawyers for the controllers wrote. The Trump administration fought in court to have the case dismissed, but that motion was denied. The parties eventually agreed to a settlement earlier this year.
The National Association of Air Traffic Controllers, the union that represents those controllers, declined to comment on the lawsuit. The union referred questions about the most recent shutdown to the FAA.
NPR asked the Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Transportation to explain how controllers would receive the back pay they are currently owed, but neither agency responded.
However Secretary Duffy has expressed support for the idea of paying a $10,000 bonus to air traffic controllers who worked through the recent shutdown, a proposal first floated by President Trump in a Truth Social post on Monday.
"The air traffic controllers who didn't miss a day, they came for every scheduled shift that they had, they should get a bonus," Duffy said Tuesday in Chicago.
"President Trump, brilliant!," Duffy said. "We are going to pay them a bonus that'll be $10,000. Depending on how many we have, they should come to the White House, and he should present them with their checks."
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