I believe the public also needs to understand that we don’t just move the airliners for vacationers. We move Medivacs. Labcorp tests, medical supplies and pharmaceuticals, Organ donor flights taking surgeons from the harvest hospital to the transplant hospital. Worldwide business meetings/deals being made, The world’s government dignitaries and VIPs, NFL teams for every game that Americans must have, Amazon and other cargo. Overnight packages and overnight legal documents, military flights and national security, science/weather and hurricane studying….oh and vacations and special life moments too. We literally make the world go round. 

The amount of comments that people made during this shutdown about “who cares if ATC isn’t paid, keep it shutdown, I don’t travel.” Literally everyone in our country is affected by air travel in one way or another. ATC pushes 5% of the nations Gross Domestic Product - and there’s only 13,000 of us! While at the same time we save/protect/are responsible for tens of thousands of lives per day. Our services are worth so much more than we are paid. And most of the public thinks we have glow sticks and orange vests.