Yesterday was a pretty eventful day at Hollywood Burbank Airport (BUR), and not in a good way…
Burbank Airport tower unstaffed amid government shutdown
The government has been shut down for nearly a week now, meaning that most federal workers aren’t getting paid. As you’d expect, at some point this impacts peoples’ willingness to go to work, with an increasing number of sick calls.
This can also impact aviation, and particularly, air traffic control staffing, given the stress the system is under even when things are operating smoothly. As an example of that, on Monday, October 6, 2025, the air traffic control tower at Hollywood Burbank Airport was unstaffed for a period of nearly six hours, from 4:15PM until 10PM.
During that time, there were no controllers in the air traffic control tower, but instead, operations were run remotely by Southern California TRACON, an approach and departure team out of San Diego. While these controllers remotely handle traffic in Southern California, it’s rare to see them performing tower functions at commercial airports.
Now, it’s worth acknowledging that there are commercial airports with unstaffed towers over certain hours. However, that’s almost never the case at airports of this size, during a busy afternoon bank of flights.
These staffing issues caused widespread flight delays of several hours, and even cancellations. While having zero people in the air traffic control tower is rare, Burbank isn’t the only airport that saw staffing shortages yesterday, as there were also issues at airports like Denver (DEN), Detroit (DTW), Indianapolis (IND), and Phoenix (PHX).
As US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy describes this:
“We are tracking sick calls, sick leave. Have we had a slight tick up in sick calls? Yes. And then you’ll see delays that come from that, right? Because again, our priority, again, I want to see your flight not be delayed. I don’t want you canceled, but our priorities are safety. So if we have additional sick calls, we will reduce the flow consistent with a rate that’s safe for the American people.”
Aviation could impact government shutdown timeline
It’s anyone’s guess how the current government shutdown situation plays out. As you’d expect, our aviation infrastructure is critically important, and any impact on aviation will be felt pretty directly by the public.
It’s worth noting that during the last government shutdown during a Trump presidency, in 2018-2019, aviation played a major part in bringing it to an end. That shutdown had lasted over a month, and increased sick calls from air traffic controllers were reportedly a key factor in ending the shutdown.
So while air traffic controllers do technically have to show up to work, that’s not to say that they won’t call in sick. Given that the system has virtually no buffer, even a minimal number of sick calls can put serious strain on the system.
Air traffic controllers are expected to get a partial paycheck on October 14, and then on October 28, they’re projected to get no paycheck at all. When you consider that air traffic controllers work incredibly long hours, it’s understandable that many just can’t bring themselves to show up when they can’t even pay their bills.
So we’ll see if aviation plays a factor in ending the shutdown this time around, or not.
Bottom line
The tower at Hollywood Burbank Airport was unstaffed for around six hours yesterday afternoon, due to staffing shortages. During that time, operations were run remotely by Southern California TRACON. This seems to be a symptom of the government shutdown, as we’ll certainly see an increase in sick calls.
We’ll see if aviation has an impact in ending this shutdown, as it did with the last major one.
What do you make of Burbank Airport operating without anyone in the tower?
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