Travel group: FAA fire cost US economy $123M

A fire in a suburban Chicago air traffic control center has cost the U.S. economy $123 million, a group that advocates for increased domestic tourism said Thursday. 

Nearly 4,000 domestic flights were canceled following a fire at an air traffic control tower in Aurora, Ill., that was set last Friday as part of a suicide attempt by an employee of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). 

The Washington-based U.S. Travel Association said Thursday that the incident has been costly to the nation’s economy. 

{mosads}”This incident clearly demonstrates the vital importance of the air travel sector to the American economy,” U.S. Travel President Roger Dow said in a statement. “We should not be in a position where a singular event such as this can cripple air travel and disrupt the plans of thousands of travelers. If policymakers fail to treat this as a wake-up call, and continue to delay significant investments in our fragile aviation infrastructure, we can count on some similar variant of this incident happening again.”

The shutdown of the Aurora control center because of fire damage caused a massive disruption to the nation’s skies, which had impacts across the U.S., especially at Chicago’s nearby O’Hare and Midway international airports. 

The group said Thursday that each flight that was cancelled as a result of the air traffic control tower fire resulted in $31,600 in lost economic production to the nation. 

Dow said the picture would be even bleaker if the Aurora incident had happened during a busier travel period like a holiday weekend.  

“These numbers would have been significantly higher if this happened around Thanksgiving or Christmas or other high-volume air travel holidays,” he said. “I hope we can work with our policy leaders to modernize the system so that we won’t have to see just how badly an event like this could cripple the system during a major travel period.”

The FAA has said that it’s investigating the circumstances that led to the Aurora fire incident.