FAA suspends furloughs; normal ops resume Sunday

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WASHINGTON, April 27 (UPI) -- The Federal Aviation Administration Saturday suspended all employee furloughs and said the U.S. flight system will resume normal operations by Sunday evening.

"Air traffic facilities will begin to return to regular staffing levels over the next 24 hours," the FAA said in a statement.

The U.S. House Friday passed a bill aimed at ending sequester-related flight delays by restoring funding for air traffic controllers.

The Senate approved the same bill Thursday evening by unanimous consent.

The furloughs, which started Sunday, required a day off without pay for every 10 workdays, or a total of 11 days off, through the end of the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.

The result was about 10 percent of the 15,000 air-traffic controllers were off every day.

The furloughs were prompted by $85 billion in across-the-board federal spending cuts, known as the sequester, that were required under a 2011 deal to raise the federal borrowing limit.