Political Quotes

“the announcement this morning that air operations in major cities in this country on the east coast and other places could be delayed or are interrupted comes as no surprise. This last week, I met with air traffic controllers in St. Louis and in Aurora, IL. We have over 600 air traffic controllers in Northern Illinois because of O'Hare, Midway, and so many other important airports in that region, and, of course, in St. Louis, with Lambert airfield and others. They have quite extensive air operations. They explained to me what is going on with air traffic controllers. It shouldn't have worried us before the shutdown. It should frighten us at this moment. Currently, air traffic controllers work 10-hour shifts. It is a stressful job--an important, stressful job. There is hardly any person more on the frontline of public safety than an air traffic controller. They are expected to concentrate--to concentrate exclusively--for 10 straight hours on each shift. Because of a shortage of air traffic controllers, they now are working 6 days a week. If you can only imagine for a moment what it is like, and, if you have been to an air traffic control tower, you know what it is like--at least from an outside observer's point of view. There they are, with a screen full of dots. In each one of them is an airplane, and in each airplane tens, maybe even hundreds of lives, and they are trying to make certain that nothing terrible occurs.…”