Oakland, California - With respect to the airlines and the aviation industry, the government shutdown is starting a dangerous domino effect. By slimming down airlines to need less controllers, the government could cost a lot of other people their jobs.

The U.S. airline passenger and air cargo industry has more than a million employees. Professor Severin Borenstein is an energy and airline economist at UC Berkeley's Haas Business School.

"But if the government continues to be shut down through the holidays, that will be very bad news for the airlines and their earnings," said Professor Borenstein.

The industry also supports more than 10 million other workers of contractors, suppliers and closely related economic activities such as tourism and business travel.

That is 5% of the U.S. ec

See Full Page