US airline group urges Congress to pay controllers during future shutdowns

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The head of a trade group representing major U.S. airlines will call on Wednesday for permanently ending aviation disruptions during government shutdowns by ensuring air traffic controllers and other key workers are paid.

Airlines for America, the group representing American Airlines , Delta Air Lines , Southwest Airlines , United Airlines and others, will tell a U.S. Senate aviation subcommittee that the 43-day government shutdown and government imposed flight cuts disrupted 6 million passengers and 50,000 flights because of rising air traffic controller absences.

“We should never subject our air traffic control system to this chaos again,” A4A CEO Chris Sununu will say according to his written testimony. “This simply should never happen again.”

(Reporting by David Shepardson)