Union head warns unpaid air-traffic controllers are 'resigning every day'

National Air Traffic Controllers President Nick Daniels told CNNs Wolf Blitzer that flight delays and complications facing customers this week are not looking like a temporary problem that will clear up once the federal government is reopened, considering the number of air-traffic controllers quitting their jobs.

When asked “what's different” from the 2019 shutdown, Daniels said "the issues are getting worse by every day."

“It's no surprise to anyone, as the story has gone on, that we only have 10,800 certified controllers,” said Daniels. “We're 3,800 short of what we actually need of 14,633. Controllers are resigning every day now because of the prolonged nature of this shutdown. We hadn't seen that before. And we're also 400 controllers shorter than we were in the 2019 shutdown. The issues are getting worse by every day.”

Anchors expressed surprise at Daniels’ claim of daily resignations, but Daniels pointed out that “it’s really hard to navigate” a full month of no pay.

Co-host Pamela Brown asked Daniels to address air traffic controller “protests” as controllers call in sick, but Daniels refused to call it a “protest.”

“This isn’t protest, and I think the term ‘calling in sick’ probably gets used loosely in this, you know, during these heightened times,” Daniels said. “They're calling in saying, ‘I don't have enough gas to get to work’ to their employer, to their supervisor. They’re calling their manager and saying, ‘what do you want me to do? I can't put gas in my car. Who's going to help me?’ because they don't have money?”

“They haven't got paid for over 37 days,” Daniels argued. It’s more like ‘I can't pay for my child care. Can I bring my kids to work?’ They're not calling in sick. They're not calling in protests. They're calling in with real life situations. These are real people dealing with real life circumstances. And when you don't pay somebody for 37 days and say, ‘hey, just keep showing up and do your best,’ people are going to have issues and they're mounting daily.”