After more than a month under the mounting pressure of the U.S. government shutdown , the national air-travel system now appears to be in the early stages of collapse with the FAA announcing Wednesday that it intends to reduce airline flights by 10 percent at 40 of the nation’s busiest airports.

The cuts will be phased in gradually with a reduction of 4 percent on Friday, 5 percent on Saturday, 6 percent on Sunday, and a full 10 percent next week. As of 7 a.m. today, the aviation data company Cirium stated that 739 flights, amounting to 3 percent of Friday’s originally scheduled flights, had been cancelled. By next week, if the government meets its goal, as many as 4,000 flights per day could be canceled.

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy had previously indicated that ev

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