The government shutdown highlighted a fragile link in the nation's aviation system: finding enough air traffic controllers to keep flights on schedule. The 43-day closure, during which controllers were required to work without pay, has only heightened that challenge.

"It's a good job with good benefits, but partisan fighting over appropriations is not an ideal situation to try to bring in new air traffic controllers and convince them that this is a good career field," Tim Kiefer, a retired air traffic controller who is now a professor of air traffic management at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, told CBS News. "It's not a positive to try to bring people into this industry by saying, 'You never know if you're not going to get paid.'"

The shutdown saw a spike in the number of cont

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