Senate acts to end days of flight delays The US Senate has approved a measure to end the flight delays bedeviling travellers across America, in the first legislative roll-back of automatic budget cuts now cutting spending across the federal bureaucracy. The Senate's bill followed days of delays as airport workers and air traffic controllers were temporarily laid off by the Federal Aviation Administration as $1.2tn in spending cuts over the next decade started to kick in. The FAA, which effectively runs the nation's air travel services, had to reduce its budget by $637m by the end of September because of the cuts, known as sequestration, Michael Huerta, FAA administrator, told Congress this week he had "no choice" but to cut pay for staff by $220m to reach the required spending cuts. The new bill gives the Transportation Department the power to use unspent funds more flexibly, to cover the costs of air traffic controllers and other essential personnel. Although the White House has yet to comment, administration officials indicated earlier this week they would be open to a deal. The House of Representatives will have to approve the measure on Friday for it to be effective, as Congress is on recess from next week. Congressional approval for a measure to ended flight delays will inevitably add to pressure to make sequestration more flexible across the board. At the moment, departments have little discretion in how they allocate cuts. However, the White House has said it will support a broader budget deal only if it includes tax revenues, something Republicans have refused to consider. Scott Conde, 46, at Oakland centre in Fremont, California - which is responsible for the entire Pacific Ocean as well as the northern part of his state - was facing his first furlough day next week. We understand that there are tough financial decisions facing our country. However there are certain critical roles that federal state and local governments play that you can't use as a cost saving tool or as a political tool," he said, ahead of the Senate vote. If furloughed, Mr Conde will see his pay cut by 10 per cent, which will force his family, including a wife who works, and three children, two of whom are in college, to "rearrange priorities." "I come to work every day and my job is to put together a three- dimensional jigsaw puzzle that's moving at 1,000 miles an hour - and do that right the first time and every time," he described in a phone interview on Thursday afternoon. "When you start eliminating staffing, it's like doing that with one hand behind your back," he says. He said furloughs were forcing him to take over two positions in the air traffic control centre, and space out departing aircraft at a distance of 15 miles from each other, rather than seven or eight normally. "So instead of three airplanes a minute, we're only going to take one airplane a minute," he says. For travelling Americans, this has meant cascading delays across US airports this week - bringing the impact of sequestration to life with a very visible impact on consumers for the first time since the automatic cuts started on March 1.