(MENAFN) The Federal Aviation Administration plans to cut airline operations by 10 percent across 40 airports starting Friday, as the federal government shutdown enters unprecedented territory, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Wednesday.

"We're trying to lean into the fact that when we see pressures building in these 40 markets, we just can't ignore it, and we're not going to wait for a safety problem to truly manifest itself when the early indicators are telling us, we can take action today to prevent things from deteriorating," Duffy stated.

The secretary acknowledged the measure will trigger widespread disruption. "I think it's going to lead to more cancellations that we're going to work with the airlines to do this in a systematic way," he told reporters during a joint briefing with FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford.

Bedford defended the capacity reduction as necessary to "continue to take the pressure off of our (air traffic) controllers, and as we continue to see staffing triggers, there will be additional measures that will be taken in those specific markets."

The administrator emphasized the historic nature of the crisis. "I'm not aware in my 35-year history in the aviation market, where we've had a situation where we're taking these kind of measures, and again, we're in a renewed territory in terms of government shutdowns," Bedford said.

Approximately 13,000 air traffic controllers and 50,000 airport security personnel have been working without compensation since the shutdown commenced, now the longest in American history. Mounting employee absences have created severe workforce gaps throughout the aviation sector, intensifying delays nationwide and sparking safety alarms.

FlightAware, the U.S. flight-tracking platform, reports thousands of daily delays across the country. Tuesday saw over 4,000 flights delayed within, departing from, or arriving in the United States—following nearly 5,000 disruptions Monday.

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