I have been a Federal Aviation Administration air traffic controller for 16 years. This is my third government shutdown. Each one chips away a little more at the sense of stability and trust my colleagues and I have in our jobs. Showing up to work every day, not knowing when or if you’ll be paid is deeply unsettling.
This time, the anxiety runs deeper.
Air traffic control is already among the most stressful jobs in America. We controllers manage lives in the sky: navigating weather, high flight volume and split-second decisions that allow passengers to land safely. During a shutdown, all that stress multiplies. Staffing is thin, breaks are shorter, and focus is harder to maintain when uncertainty about your paycheck hangs over everything.
After my shift, I don’t go home to rest. I clock into DoorDash, trying to make ends meet for my daughter and me.
Every day I go to work from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., trying to perform at the highest level. When I was sick this month, I was reported as “absent without leave,” which carries a risk of discipline and adds emotional strain on top of my workload. Pressure is mounting on me and other air traffic control specialists. Controllers are essential workers, so we are required to work our regular schedules without compensation while the government is shut down. Some controllers work at very high-volume facilities, and we all have to manage the stress of life outside work. Air traffic control is a job with zero margin for error. We have to be perfect. Yet somehow, in what’s supposed to be the greatest nation on Earth, we go to work not knowing when we will be paid again.
After my shift, I don’t go home to rest. I clock into DoorDash, trying to make ends meet for my daughter and me. Like many families, we didn’t plan for a shutdown. Yet the bills don’t stop. Rising interest rates have intensified costs, and pain, in recent years. In the last federal shutdown, I worked as a truck driver to get by. Mortgages are basic responsibilities that hard-working Americans are struggling to meet because our government is at a standstill.
I talk to new air traffic controllers who are terrified. Some bought cars or signed leases based on steady government income, and that stability is gone. One working mother of a 7-month-old told me she pays $2,000 a month in child care. She said it would be more profitable to stay home with her baby than to work without knowing when she’ll be paid again.
These are real lives caught in the political crossfire.
Personally, I’m sleeping only two hours most nights. Four weeks into this shutdown, the stress is constant. As a single father, I do my best to smile when I pick up my daughter from school, to ask about her day as if everything is normal. But she feels the strain, too. She can sense my fatigue and frustration, and it’s unfair to her. It takes every ounce of discipline not to reach for unhealthy coping mechanisms, including alcohol, to dull the anxiety. I have contacted the employee assistance program for help managing my increased stress.
Air traffic control is a job with zero margin for error. We have to be perfect. We federal workers are not asking for pity. We are asking for leadership. It is incumbent upon both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to come together and do the job they were elected to do. I understand that Democrats are fighting to keep insurance premiums low. I respect that. And I understand that Republicans, holding the presidency and majorities in both chambers, feel they have a mandate. But a mandate does not mean acting without collaboration. My plea is simple: Sit down and negotiate. Find a middle ground. Stop pointing fingers. Stop turning your backs on one another, and on the rest of us. Members of Congress continue to receive pay during this shutdown, and while some have donated or declined their compensation, that gesture does little for families that have to choose between groceries and gas. Think about all the federal workers who show up every day to keep this country safe and functioning. Think about the air traffic controllers who ensure that planes land safely while wondering how to pay their rent. Think about the parents who can’t afford child care, or the families depending on SNAP benefits who can no longer put food on the table. Food pantries have opened in some airports to assist federal workers who are struggling. Open the government. Do what must be done to get federal employees paid, or make the hard choice to let us go so we can seek other employment. But do not hold us hostage to political gridlock. The American people deserve better. We deserve leaders who remember that the decisions they make, or fail to make, have real consequences.
Jack Criss
Jack Criss is an air traffic control specialist at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. 
