Germany is also in close contact with Britain with a view to avoiding disruption to air transport links in the case of a hard Brexit.

A number of Conservative MPs have spoke out in favour of leaving the EU without a deal as they maintain opposition to Mrs May’s deal.

Ross Thomson, MP for Aberdeen South, said: “Leaving the EU on WTO terms means we have our own trade policy, save billions of our own money, take back control of our own law making, regain control over our own borders and take back control of our own fishing waters.

“That’s Brexit. That’s closer to what people voted for.”

The EU Commission has already announced a series of plans to minimise disruption and has also urged member states to step up their own preparations.

In December, Brussels a number of temporary measures, in areas such as finance and transport.

“These measures will not – and cannot – mitigate the overall impact of a ‘no-deal’ scenario,” the Commission said in a statement.

Hostilities between aviation workers and their employers have resumed across Europe, with thousands of passengers caught up in the first major stoppage of the year.

Security workers at Berlin’s Tegel Airport took industrial action between 5am and 8.45am, the busiest time of the week for outbound departures. The strike triggered cancellations that will disrupt travel through the morning.

Lufthansa and its subsidiaries Eurowings are hardest hit, with multiple flights to Frankfurt, Cologne and Munich grounded.

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Services to Paris, Copenhagen, Basel, Zurich and Vienna are among the international flights cancelled.

The airport told passengers: “From 5am to 8.45am there will be severe disruption in air traffic. Enquire about the current status of your flight with your airline before travelling to the airport.”

Ryanair cabin crew employed in Spain are planning strikes on 8, 10 and 13 January after failing to reach an agreement with Europe’s biggest budget airline over employment conditions.

As is customary in Spain, the government has stipulated a minimum level of operations, which means that all domestic flights and 35 per cent of international services must run.

The airline said it planned to operate a full schedule of flights to, from and within Spain on Tuesday 8 January – but urged passengers to arrive at the departure airport at least two hours ahead.

The latest strike to be called is in Italy on Friday 11 January. Eurocontrol said the four-hour strike, timed for the busiest afternoon of the week – from 1-5pm – will affect domestic, European flights and long-haul departures, but not overflights or incoming intercontinental flights.

Passengers whose flights are disrupted are entitled to a duty of care – meals and accommodation – until they reach their destination, but the right to cash compensation is disputed.

Unions representing Transportation Security Administration employees, air traffic controllers and airline pilots demanded that President Donald Trump and Congress end a 16-day partial government shutdown that has wreaked havoc on air travel.

Airport and airline employees across the country have urged air travelers to arrive hours earlier than usual for flights in light of increased security checkpoint wait times and backed-up lines.  Employees at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, for example, told KIRO-TV that several passengers had been left crying outside the gates after they’d waited hours to get through unstaffed security checkpoints—the situation got worse as several TSA employees, who have been working without pay during the shutdown, called in sick.

“It was a huge line, Sea-Tac employee Sarah Burgisser told KIRO-TV. “I think it was just one guy who came to work.”

Pilots and air-traffic controllers are also affected, which has sparked concerns about safety. Controllers were expected to implement a new text messaging system that communicates directly with pilots in the cockpit, but the shutdown has stalled the initiative. If they can’t use the sytem by January 15, expensive retraining sessions will be forced on workers.

The third week of the partial government shutdown prompted Joe DePete, president of Air Line Pilots Association International, to write a January 2 letter to Trump saying that the block on paychecks and services to pilots is threatening the “safety, security and efficiency of our national airspace system.” 

Unions representing TSA workers, air traffic controllers and airline pilots are demanding President Donald Trump and congressional leaders end a 16-day partial government shutdown that is now causing safety and wait time issues. Getty Images SCOTT OLSON/Staff

“The nation’s airspace system is a complex transportation network that involves government and industry partnerships to function properly, and the disruptions being caused by the shutdown are threatening the safe operations of this network,” DePete wrote to Trump last week.

The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 30,000 workers in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky, including TSA employees, told WCPO-TV  it was filing a lawsuit against the federal government. 

“We’re saying it’s against the law to work employees without paying them. These are not slaves. It’s against the law,” Arnold Scott, of the American Federation of Government Employees, told the Cincinnati news station. “The fair labor standards require federal employees be paid for the work that they perform.”

The National Air Traffic Controller Association said the pain of the partial government shutdown was forcing its employees to work long hours without payment. “We are working six days a week. Some are working 10 hours a day, that’s across the country,” said Marc Schneider, president of the association, in an interview with WCPO-TV. “We are at a 30-year low in staffing for air traffic controllers nationwide. The school in Oklahoma City is shut down.”

TSA administrators issued a statement Monday morning rejecting reports of longer-than-average security wait times. The agency reported increased efficiency despite a spike in travel and the government shutdown. TSA’s statement said its employees had screened “approximately 2.22 million passengers Sunday, a historically busy day due to holiday travel; 99.8 percent of passengers waited less than 30 minutes; 90.1 percent of passengers less than 15 minutes.”

But social media posts showed long lines, and passengers who spoke with KIRO-TV in Seattle said unstaffed TSA checkpoints caused passengers to miss flights. TSA spokesman Jim Gregory told The Washington Post “sick outs” or “call outs” had increased at airports, but had had “minimal impact” on the 30-minute average wait time. 

But TSA employee union leaders tell a very different tale. “Fifty to 100 people are calling out at any particular airport,” said Hydrick Thomas, president of the TSA union under the American Federation of Government Employees, in an interview with The Washington Post. “They are not coming to work because they don’t have the money to get to work. They’re not just taking off. They’re not saying, ‘We’re going to shut things down.’ They are the lowest-paid employees in the federal government, and they don’t have the money to get to work.”

One passenger at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, Anna Gedstad, in a Sunday tweet, which has since gone viral, that a TSA agent responded to her question about removing her laptop from its case by saying, “I don’t care, I’m not getting paid.” 

Passengers and airline employees at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport said longer lines caused by fewer TSA checkpoint workers had caused hundreds to miss their flights Monday.

“Your ticket may say get here three hours early, [but] I say get here five hours early,” said Valante Weems, an employee at Sea-Tac.

Even the TSA’s website was forced to issue a statement acknowledging that the staffing shortage had affected their digital presence. “Due to the lapse in federal funding, this website will not be actively managed. This website was last updated on December 21, 2018, and will not be updated until after funding is enacted. As such, information on this website may not be up to date. Transactions submitted via this website might not be processed, and we will not be able to respond to inquiries until after appropriations are enacted.” 

National airline delay maps showed Dallas-Fort Worth, Chicago and New York airports experiencing mild Monday morning delays.

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DENVER, Colorado — If you are planning on hiking in a national park or head to the airport to travel this weekend be prepared. Federal workers are warning that the government shutdown is starting to impact safety.

“For air traffic controllers, you only get one take,” said James Marinitti with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. “They work in a mistake-free environment where we are expected to be right 100 percent of the time.”

With 3,000 air traffic support staff being told not to come to work there are fewer safety inspectors. That can lead to delays like repairing runway lights that guide pilots to the installation of new technology that helps controllers communicate with pilots.

“Radar, preventative maintenance — these types of things that will get delayed as the shutdown continues because the workers are not there to keep the system healthy,” Marinitti said.

TSA employees are among the thousands of essential government workers required to show up without pay. Senior officials have confirmed with CNN that hundreds of TSA employees are calling out sick since the shutdown.

We reached out to the TSA at Denver International Airport about the impacts but have not heard back.

At Rocky Mountain National Park, visitors are arriving only to be disappointed.

“We are out here to visit. We see the sign and realize it’s closed. We came all the way from Vancouver, Canada, and it’s kinda disappointing,” said Stanley Marayan.

Trash cans are locked up at the park and roads are closed because there are no workers to plow them.

The National Park Service is warning visitors to use extreme caution during the shutdown because emergency services are limited. At Yosemite National Park, one death wasn’t reported for a week because of the government shutdown.

“America is great. We want to explore America, so for us, I think this is crazy they are closing the parks. Nature is beautiful here,” Marayan said.

By Taylor Dolven / Miami Herald

MIAMI — Federal aviation safety inspectors haven’t been inspecting anything for the last two weeks because of the government shutdown. Deemed nonessential workers, the inspectors say they’re anything but.

Holding signs saying, “Was your airplane properly repaired and inspected today? The FAA does not know!” at Miami International Airport on Thursday, inspectors spoke with departing airline passengers about what they say is a heightened risk of aviation accidents because of their absence.

“My job is the safety of people,” said Charles Banks, 50, a veteran who has worked as an FAA safety inspector for 15 years. “I have family flying too and I can’t protect them from here on the curb.”

Contrary to their TSA counterparts, safety inspectors have little interaction with travelers. Instead, they work behind the scenes inspecting plane repairs, reviewing pilot work, helping flight attendants with unruly passengers and investigating accidents. About 80 inspectors work at MIA and Fort Lauderdale—Hollywood International Airport, Banks said, along with a larger administrative staff. Airline companies do their own inspections and reviews, but according to the furloughed inspectors, no one is currently overseeing those companies.

“We are another layer of safety,” said Troy Tomey, 52, who has been an inspector for four years. “We’re the last check of the box. Taking us out of it, mistakes can happen.”

An FAA press release from Dec. 22 — the first day of the government shutdown — said “there is no impact to safety or FAA oversight for travelers.” Furloughed inspectors disagree. On Dec. 21, the day before the shutdown, a Korean Air cargo plane’s wing collided on the ground with a Tab cargo plane’s tail at Miami International Airport, damaging both planes. Tomey said he and his team identified damage that one of the airlines didn’t originally report to the aircraft manufacturer, which was in charge of repairing the planes.

Normally, Tomey said he would review the manufacturer’s repair report to make sure everything was fixed. But since he’s been furloughed, that hasn’t happened.

“Both companies have emailed me what they’ve done and my job is to validate what they’ve done is right,” Tomey said. “I’m 99.9 percent sure they did, but we don’t know. Now they’re back in the air flying.”

In Michigan, sheriff’s deputies have been guarding the scene of a fatal plane crash last weekend, waiting for FAA investigators to arrive. The FAA said in a statement that it is limiting investigations to “major accidents involving significant casualties and certain other accidents when failure to proceed with the investigation creates a significant risk to transportation safety.”

In addition to public safety, the personal well-being of inspectors is top of mind for Robert Guevara, legislative chairman for Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, the union that represents safety inspectors.

“We have members who live paycheck to paycheck. We have mortgages to pay. We’re just like everybody else,” he said. “Our creditors demand their bills to be paid on time. We’re worried they’re going to take a hit on their credit reports.”

Still, furloughed inspectors said they’d prefer to be working without pay like their TSA colleagues. At least then, they’d know they were doing all they could do to keep passengers safe.