what the shutdown means for travel

A government shutdown appears to be imminent, if the government can’t get its House of Representatives in order. What does that mean for travel? Nothing good.

Passport Renewals

Renewing your passport over the summer took longer than ever. Now that the peak summer travel season is behind us, things were starting to improve. But if you need to travel this fall, and you’ve got less than six months of validity on your passport, you might be stuck.

Depending on how long the shutdown lasts, the backlog in passport renewals could have a significant trail. Once the shutdown is over, there could be months and months of delays in renewals. Our suggestion: put in your renewals sooner rather than later, so that you’re at the front of the line. And have an itinerary that you can cancel without penalty so that you can reach out to your congressperson or senator to see if they can get you an appointment once things are back up and running.

TSA, Customs and Border Patrol, and Air Traffic Control

For airport employees who are considered essential, the government shutdown should be business as usual. We say “should be” because even though those essential workers won’t be furloughed, they also won’t be receiving paychecks. Meaning — they’ll be working on an IOU basis. The longer the shut down continues, the greater the likelihood that those workers will need to find other jobs to make ends meet, and if they don’t have savings to dip into to keep food on the table, we shouldn’t be surprised if we see short-staffed airports, which will mean delays.

There will also be a delay in training new employees, and again, there will be a trailing tail of effects there. It takes time to train an air traffic controller, and without a steady pipeline of training, short staffing will be inevitable even if the shutdown lasts for just a few days.

National Parks and Museums

If you were planning to visit a US National Park, or a federally-funded museum like The Smithsonian — those are considered non-essential, and those parks and museums will be closed. We’d recommend checking with the museum to see if it’s actually open during the shutdown, but as for National Parks — maybe look for a nice state park as an alternative?

What to Do

If you’ve got travel, it’s not too late to put a comprehensive travel insurance policy in place. Insurance can cover you for cancellations that are out of your control, as well as trip delay, trip interruption, emergency medical, medical evacuation, lost or stolen personal effects and much more. With so much uncertainty, and the failure of Congress to come to a sensible solution to avoid a shutdown, you need insurance now, more than ever.

Thinking about traveling this fall, we’re happy to make a plan. We can give you an itinerary that will help you get an earlier appointment for renewal, and a comprehensive insurance plan to make sure you’re protected if something goes sideways with that trip.