Will The US Government Shutdown Affect My Los Cabos Flight? What Travelers Need To Know

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The short answer is: your Los Cabos flight can still operate — but the U.S. side of your trip is wobblier than usual right now, and the longer the shutdown drags on, the more you should build in “cushion time.”

We at The Cabo Sun have been watching both the local SJD situation and the evolving U.S. shutdown, and the pattern is pretty clear: the bottleneck is at U.S. departure and connection points, not in Los Cabos. Here’s how to stay ahead of it.

What’s actually happening in the U.S. right now

Because of the shutdown that began October 1, thousands of FAA air traffic controllers and TSA officers are working without pay.

That’s led to more absences and forced the FAA to slow traffic at some of its busiest facilities — especially New York, Texas, Boston, Chicago and Philly — to keep things safe. When the FAA slows traffic, flights line up, and delays ripple across the country.

We’ve already seen days with 2,700+ delays nationwide, and federal officials are warning it could get worse headed toward the November/holiday push if lawmakers don’t cut a deal.

So…will your Cabo flight be delayed?

It depends on where you start.

• Nonstop from the U.S. to SJD: If your flight leaves from a big, affected hub (Dallas–Fort Worth, Houston, Chicago, Boston, New York area, even L.A. on rough days), you’re more exposed to a ground delay because that airport might have fewer controllers on position. If the plane leaves late, it gets to Los Cabos late.
• Connecting to Cabo: Your weak link is the first U.S. leg. If that gets pushed back, you can miss the Cabo connection, and with high Cabo demand this fall — SJD is still running near record passenger numbers — reaccommodation may not be instant.
• Heading home from Cabo: SJD is operating normally. But if the aircraft that’s supposed to fly you north is late coming down from the U.S. because of a staffing slowdown there, you can feel it in Mexico a few hours later.

What’s happening in Los Cabos itself?

Locally, Los Cabos Airport is actually trying to make life easier — not harder — for travelers right now. They just announced a new system to prevent a repeat of the surprise terminal flooding earlier this year, so the issues we saw then shouldn’t be what holds you up on departure.

What can still slow you down is the drive to the airport. As we reported this week in Is Los Cabos Airport Traffic Improving Yet? Here’s What You Need To Know, construction around the Fonatur roundabout is real — we added about 10 extra minutes on our own airport run. So even though the shutdown is a U.S. problem, we still recommend the same local rule: leave 3 to 3.5 hours before departure, especially if you’re coming from the Corridor or Cabo San Lucas. That way you’re not layering U.S. delays on top of Cabo delays.

How to protect your trip

1. Book the earliest flight of the day out of the U.S. Early departures usually go before controller fatigue and sick calls stack up.
2. Avoid tight connections to SJD. Give yourself 90+ minutes in the U.S., more if you’re changing terminals.
3. Watch your airline app the day before. If the FAA starts a ground delay program at your departure airport, it will often show up in the app or via text first.
4. Arrive early at SJD on the way back. Local traffic + busy high-season departures + a U.S. system that’s already stressed = zero margin for showing up late.
5. Travel with carry-on if you can. If you misconnect because of a shutdown-related delay, not checking a bag makes rerouting to Cabo (or home) easier.

The bottom line

Flights to Los Cabos are not being canceled just because of the shutdown. Planes are still moving, vacationers are still landing, and SJD is still investing in upgrades we’ve been covering all fall.

But this particular U.S. shutdown has dragged on long enough that controller absences are now hitting “almost half of major facilities,” which means random, annoying slowdowns can pop up on the very morning you fly to the beach. Build in time and you’ll almost certainly make it.