Budget Cuts Might Cause Major Delays, Furloughs, Lay-Offs

Federal spending cuts that could take hold as soon as Monday might lead to flight delays at major airports during peak times.

Fliers should expect delays as long as 30 minutes; additionally, when further furloughs cause airports to close runways, delays could go for hours, federal transportation officials told CNN.

Ray LaHood, Secretary of Transportation, and Federal Aviation Administration chief Michael Huerta kept airlines abreast of the cuts Tuesday, then informed reporters late Thursday, claiming the public must be up to date on the possible changes due to the sequester.

These forced cuts will top out at about $1 billion-$637 million of that number will come from the Federal Aviation Administration's $16 billion budget.

Some aviation officials are raising their eyebrows at The Department of Transportation, who they claim could have been more lenient on the cuts. They hoped the DOT would not cut from such key arenas.

LaHood responded by saying that there was nothing more he and his department could do, despite knowing how detrimental the cuts will be.

"We have done everything [possible] to find a billion dollars, and if we had our way we probably wouldn't be sitting here," he said to CNN. "This is very painful. This is not what we signed up for. This is a dumb idea. Sequester is a dumb idea. Not one person in America would use the sequester to figure out their budget. It's a meat-ax approach."

He also added sternly that the cuts would not compromise overall passenger safety, the DOT's first priority.

55,000 DOT employees have already been placed on unpaid leave for 11 days at the end of the fiscal year.

All employees are on edge, as each of them are up for potential furloughs. A handful of 47,000 FAA employees, most of whom are air traffic controllers, will also be let go.

LaHood calls these furloughs unavoidable, painful as they will be.

The FAA studied air traffic at 13 major airports to predict delays, including New York's Newark, JFK, and LaGuardia, Chicago's O'Hare, California's LAX, and Mississippi's Atlanta Harsfield-Jackson.

Each airport will experience delays ranging an average of between 10 minutes and 50 minutes. The maximum delay time will be 210 minutes, at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson.