The U.S. Department of Transportation may need to close "certain parts of the airspace" if the longest government shutdown on record continues into next week, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Tuesday.

"You will see mass flight delays, you'll see mass cancellations," Duffy said at a press conference in Washington, D.C. "And you may see us close certain parts of the airspace because we just cannot manage it, because we don't have the air traffic controllers."

He added, "We will restrict the airspace when we feel it's not safe."

Throughout the 35-day federal shutdown, set to become the longest in U.S. history, Duffy has maintained that commercial air travel remains safe. The tradeoff is that passengers are experiencing more flight delays as officials slow flight traffic based

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