Delta CEO Ed Bastian joined "CBS Mornings" following the end of the longest U.S. government shutdown. The 43-day impasse impacted millions of Americans and thousands of scheduled flights. CBS News' Tom Hanson reports.

Newark Liberty International Airport

Delta CEO Ed Bastian stated that airline operations are recovering faster than expected following the recent end of the government shutdown, with staffing levels improving and most Delta cancellations limited to government-mandated flights on smaller planes. However, delays and cancellations continue across the United States, with nearly 800 delays and almost 1,000 cancellations reported on the day of the broadcast.

At Newark Liberty International Airport, most flights are on time, but some disruptions persist, partly due to a 6% nationwide flight reduction for safety reasons. TSA and air traffic control staff are still awaiting back pay, and the shutdown's ripple effects may impact future staffing and training for air traffic controllers.

Delta CEO reacts to end of shutdown as travel chaos begins to soothe

All right, the government shutdown may be over, but the impacts are not. Travelers can still expect to see airline delays and cancellations across the country. Earlier, R. Gayle King spoke exclusively to Delta CEO Ed Bastian on CBS Mornings about the lasting effects of the shutdown on air travel. I think we'll be back a lot faster than people think. The last couple days actually were pretty good. Were they? The staffing, as soon as the Senate deal on Monday got approved, staffing levels almost overnight improved dramatically. So last couple of days, the only cancellations that Delta had were the government-mandated cancellations for us, which is mostly on our smaller planes. And I expect by the weekend, we're pretty much gonna be full steam ahead. And no concerns about Thanksgiving? No concerns. Thanksgiving's gonna be a great holiday period of travel. All right, let's bring in CBS News correspondent Tom Hanson, who's live at Newark Liberty Airport. Tom looks pretty calm back there. What are you seeing? Yeah, Vlad, well, I got the good news, I got the bad news. You heard right there, we are taking the steps to get things back to normal, but there are still these pesky delays and cancellations across the country. At last look, total delays within, into, and out of the United States today stand at 797 for cancellations in that category, 996. So you're still seeing a substantial disruption in those flights. Here at Newark, it stands at just about over 20 delays. When you look at the board behind me, most of the flights are on time. We do have a couple of delays and a couple of cancellations up there, but for the most part, it's getting back to at least feeling like business as usual. But those delays and cancellations are going to stretch into today, potentially into tomorrow. Some of those cancellations are, of course, because of Secretary Duffy's cuts to 6%. He canceled 6% of flights around the country in order for ATC to keep up with demand and make sure that people are flying safely. But we're not quite out of the woods just yet, Vlad, although that seems to be, as you heard, things getting back to normal in the coming days. That's good news. So what can travelers expect as the airlines get back to that normal staffing and flight schedules? I guess the most important thing is not so much the airlines, Tom, but TSA. I mean, that was the big holdup. For example, I was flying out of Los Angeles yesterday or two days ago, and normally the line that I would go through at Delta had no TSA agents. I had to go to a completely different area for security screening. Yeah, I mean, it's safe to say, Vlad, that it has been quite a mess for a lot of travelers, you and me included. You know, as far as TSA and air traffic control goes, they're still waiting, many of them, for those paychecks, that back pay. They have been put through the wringer over the last several weeks, making impossible decisions about whether to work without pay, take a second job, spend their money on gas, spend their money on food. So they are anxiously awaiting this. There are still plenty of air traffic controllers, TSA, who are calling out sick as we speak. And so we can expect in the next 24 to 48 hours, the number of people showing back up to work to increase. However, we are still dealing with those ripple effects. I wanna note one thing that I asked Secretary Sean Duffy in a press conference a couple weeks ago in the middle of this shutdown. I asked him also if air traffic control trainees have been impacted by this shutdown and potentially, you know, are they deterred from actually taking up these jobs? Because of course, as you remember, Secretary Duffy made a huge initiative to boost the staffing levels for air traffic controllers, which is a chronically understaffed sector. He said that there was a legitimate concern that these trainees may drop out of the program. And so you're looking at the ripple effects of this government shutdown, extending beyond just the immediate return to normal, those immediate flights and cancellations. It may have a larger impact on air traffic controllers as well. Flad. All right, Tom Hanson for us at Newark. Thank you, Tom, appreciate it.

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