WASHINGTON — Flights were delayed by up to two hours across the country on Monday, the first weekday that the nation's air traffic control system operated with 10 percent fewer controllers. Pilots, gate agents and others were quick to blame furloughs caused by mandatory across-the-board budget cuts, but the Federal Aviation Administration said it was too soon to tell.
The agency said in a statement, however, that "travelers can expect to see a wide range of delays that will change throughout the day depending on staffing and weather-related issues," and that there were special "staffing challenges" at radar centers in New York, Dallas-Fort Worth, Jacksonville and Los Angeles. At those centers, controllers had to space airplanes farther apart so that they would not have to take on more planes than they could manage at a time.
The F.A.A. said it would not have a firm count of how many delays were the result of air traffic control staffing until Tuesday.
The agency said the public can get a snapshot of overall delays at its Web site, faa.gov.
Delays piled up throughout Monday as the airlines, including US Airways, JetBlue and Delta, were forced to cancel some flights because of cutbacks. Shuttle flights between Washington and New York were running 60 to 90 minutes late. But Southwest Airlines said it did not see any unusual delays.
Airline executives were furious over how the aviation agency handled the government-inflicted chaos, and privately said the agency was seeking to impose the maximum possible pain for passengers to make a political point. The airlines had hoped that Congress would intervene and restore some of the financing, but so far lawmakers have not acted to help the F.A.A.
The pilots' union, and trade groups representing large airlines and regional carriers, filed a suit on Friday seeking to avert the furloughs. The F.A.A. calculated that the furloughs would affect up to 6,700 flights a day. There are 30,000 to 35,000 commercial flights a day.
On Capitol Hill on Monday, Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader, said: "Americans arriving at the airport to take off on their summer vacations already face long lines at security checkpoints. Soon they'll face long waits in the terminal as well."
In fact, while employees are being furloughed across the federal government, the aviation system is unusually visible, said Paul S. Hudson, the president of FlyersRights.org, the largest airline passenger organization. "The federal government does not supply direct services to the American public in most areas," he said. "This is one that they do." He said that members of Congress were "playing chicken" over the budget, but that they amounted to "a direct shot to the throat of the economy as well as to air travelers directly."
Passengers found the delays irritating.
Lauren Bernstein, a television producer, was waiting at Newark Liberty International Airport for a flight to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where she was meeting three friends, all turning 30 this month, for a one-week vacation. The United Airlines flight was supposed to leave at 11:34, and about noon, gate agents announced that it would be in the air by 1 p.m. Dunkin' Donuts in hand, and episodes of "House of Lies" loaded into her iPad, she waited.
"It's frustrating," she said. "You obviously don't want them to try to put too many planes in the air with not enough people, and have safety issues. But there needs to be some solution."
"Luckily, I do not have a connection," she said. Her flight landed nearly two hours late.
Other passengers took the delays in stride, at least for now. Bill Perry, 48, a trucking company manager from Chattanooga, Tenn., said he had no problem waiting half an hour to help the government balance its budget. "We need to tighten up anyway, so this isn't any big deal to me," Mr. Perry said.
At Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, Roger Eldredge, a Delta gate agent, sought to deflect blame in explaining to passengers that Flight 486 to La Guardia would be leaving at 4:20 p.m. rather than 3:40 p.m. "If you've watched the news the last couple of days," Mr. Eldredge announced, "you may understand the delay. It has nothing to do with Delta. It has to do with F.A.A. furloughs."
Mr. Eldredge's partner at the gate, Derek John, said the delays, typically 30 to 60 minutes, had lengthened on Monday afternoon as the slowdown compounded across the country. Mr. John said he had heard passengers grumble that Washington should solve the fiscal crisis. "But I don't argue with safety," he said, "so it makes sense to me."
The controllers themselves, who face 11 unpaid days between now and the end of September, are complaining more loudly. "Our nation's aviation system should never have been allowed to be turned into the political football that it has become," the National Air Traffic Controllers Association said on Friday.
The F.A.A. cuts began Sunday, but airlines initially reported few problems. By Sunday evening, the situation had changed, according to a United Airlines spokeswoman, Megan McCarthy.
Some experts said it was possible that even if the reduced staffing persisted, the F.A.A. would improve its management as it got used to the situation.
One expert on air traffic, Daniel A. Baker, a spokesman for FlightAware of Houston, said that it was always difficult to parse what had caused delays, but that some appeared to be coming from staffing problems. "It can ruin your afternoon, but it's not what people had pictured," he said, adding that many feared worse.
Matthew L. Wald reported from Washington, and Jad Mouawad from New York. Kevin Sack contributed reporting from Atlanta.
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