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War, walkouts, and $200 fuel are turning flying into a grind

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Jetsetting has gotten less glamorous — and that’s not expected to change even as President Donald Trump reinstates pay for Transportation Security Administration workers.

Trump on Friday directed Homeland Security to start paying TSA workers after Congress failed to agree on a path to end the partial government shutdown and fund the Department of Homeland Security.

The DHS said its agents could start seeing paychecks again as soon as Monday, but if you thought that would mean shorter airport security lines, you might want to pack a snack.

The airline industry is facing an assembly of problems — war, rising costs, staffing shortages, to name a few — that are making flying more expensive and stressful.

Staffing Shortages

The funding lapse had forced TSA officers, who make a starting salary of about $40,000 and often live paycheck to paycheck, to go without wages for weeks. Hundreds of them quit.

Even with the promise of full paychecks to come soon, the TSA will need to address this staffing shortfall.

Ha Nguyen McNeill, the agency’s deputy administrator, said almost 500 officers have quit since the partial shutdown began in mid-February. More than 1,000 TSA agents also quit during the 43-day government shutdown late last year.

The TSA employs about 50,000 officers, but it takes 4 to 6 months to complete training. That means those long lines might linger a while longer. It’s possible those open roles may not be filled in time for the FIFA World Cup in June.

“This is a dire situation,” McNeill told lawmakers on Wednesday. “We are facing a potential perfect storm of severe staffing shortages and an influx of millions of passengers at our airports.”

Adam Stahl, the TSA chief of staff, also addressed staffing lapses on Wednesday. He said the situation will “get worse before it gets better” despite Trump’s executive order.

“There are knock-on ramifications of attrition when the shutdown ends,” Stahl told “The Hill,” a TV news program on NewsNation.

He added that the recruiting pipeline is a “challenge.”

“Folks that are possibly in the pipeline or they’re considering going and joining the workforce will be dissuaded because of the lack of job security,” Stahl said.

Flying is getting pricier

Jet fuel costs are skyrocketing due to the US and Israel’s war on Iran, which is expected to add to the already elevated cost of flying.

Prices have surged to about nearly $200 a barrel since February, far surpassing the earlier $100 average.

As a result, some airlines are relying on consumers to cover the additional costs. Qantas Airways, Air India, Thai Air, and other airlines have already alerted flyers that they’re raising ticket prices.

The ongoing military conflict has effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway near Iran’s coast through which 20% of the world’s oil supply and liquefied natural gas typically pass. Other major oil hubs, including a key port in the United Arab Emirates, have sustained damage.

The war has also forced some countries to close their airspace, forcing airlines to reroute flights and find alternative routes.

Mounting anxiety

None of this is good for the airline industry. Some Americans are increasingly anxious about air travel, which could make them think twice about purchasing costly tickets.

In an Ipsos survey conducted in February, almost half of respondents said they’re “losing confidence in the safety of air travel.” Respondents with household incomes over $125,000 had even less confidence.

“That’s likely a worrying stat for the travel industry as the high earners are much more frequent fliers,” the global market research firm wrote in its report.

Less than 30% of respondents said they felt “confident in the safety of air travel.”

The survey doesn’t specify a reason. However, there could be several factors, including the war’s impact on international travel, rising ticket prices during a time of economic anxiety, the fallout from staff shortages, or a string of recent emergencies.

In January, a passenger jet collided with a Black Hawk helicopter near the Reagan Washington National Airport. Sixty-seven people died. And this week, an Air Canada passenger plane crashed into a fire truck, killing two pilots.




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A map of the western hemisphere showing the flight path of Air France 191 which departed Bengaluru and diverted to Ashgabat.

Passengers flying to Paris spent 21 hours stranded in the remote nation of Turkmenistan

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Air France passengers were delayed by nearly two days after they were diverted to Turkmenistan.

Monday’s Flight 191 was already running 21 hours late when it departed Bengaluru, India, shortly after 11 p.m., according to data from Flightradar24. It was supposed to land in Paris about 10 hours later.

However, four hours into the journey, the Boeing 777 started descending. It made a U-turn to land in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, a sparsely populated nation in Central Asia.

Registered as F-GSPI, the jet is 26 years old. The cause of the diversion has not been confirmed, though The Independent reported that the plane suffered an engine issue.

Passengers then had to wait nearly another whole day to continue their journey to Paris. Turkmenistan is ruled by what Human Rights Watch has described as a totalitarian, hereditary government and is one of the world’s most politically secluded countries.

Air France did not respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider.

Given that the flight departed from India, there were a number of Indian nationals on board, who were hosted by the nation’s consulate in Turkmenistan. It is unclear where the majority of the passengers on the flight stayed during their time in Ashgabat.

Ultimately, a new aircraft was dispatched to collect the passengers. Flight-tracking data shows another Air France Boeing 777 left Paris on Tuesday morning and arrived in Ashgabat after a five-hour flight.

It spent about three hours on the ground before departing Turkmenistan shortly after 1 a.m. That’s nearly 22 hours after the passengers first arrived there.

The plane then landed in the French capital at 3:23 a.m. on Wednesday. Along with the departure delay, that’s 43 hours later than passengers initially expected to get there.

Flight-tracking data appears to show that the original plane is still on the ground in Ashgabat as of Thursday morning, three days after it landed there.

This wasn’t the first time that Air France has sent a plane to rescue stranded passengers.

In May 2024, one of its Boeing 787s was flying from Paris to Seattle when a burning smell was detected in the cabin.

The pilots declared an emergency and diverted to Iqaluit, the capital of Canada’s Nunavut territory. A different flight was canceled so a Boeing 777 could take the passengers to New York.




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The memes are flying about the Netflix and Paramount bidding battle for Warner Bros. Discovery

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The Hollywood bidding war between Paramount Skydance and Netflix has created a meme frenzy.

The two media giants are in an all-out battle for Warner Bros. Discovery after it accepted Netflix’s offer to acquire its studio and streaming businesses for an equity value of $72 billion. David Ellison’s Paramount launched a hostile $30-per-share bid for all of WBD on Monday.

Warner Bros. Discovery owns the Warner Bros. film studio, HBO, the HBO Max streaming service, and TV networks such as CNN, TNT, and TruTV. It confirmed receipt of Paramount’s unsolicited offer on Monday.

Both entities have made their cases on why they’d be the best owner for WBD. Although internet comedians don’t have a say in where the deals land, it hasn’t stopped them from weighing in with viral jokes about the dueling companies and their quest to acquire WBD.

Some social media users are poking fun at the back-and-forth with memes about how far each company is willing to go to gain WBD’s favor. One post compared the battle for the best offer to a scene from the HBO business drama “Succession,” a title Netflix would own if the deal goes through.

The Instagram meme account Litquidity used parody images that appeared to be AI-created of two business leaders speaking at the DealBook Summit to mock how each company is trying to prove its offer is better.

Some people seem to be using humor to cope with the idea of more consolidation in Hollywood. They are pushing back on both offers with memes about stopping the looming acquisition completely.

“I’m putting together a team to fight the Netflix Warner Bros merger,” one X user captioned a compilation video of various actors and famous filmmakers.

Others speculated on what the movie-watching experience could be like under Warner Bros. Discovery’s new ownership. One TikTok video showed a man sitting down to watch a movie, only for the intros to include a confusing mix of studios, backers such as Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, and even a DJ, being played before the movie began.

In the midst of all the jokes, Netflix argues that its offer would be better for consumers and creators, while Ellison says Paramount is more likely to win regulatory approval and offers Hollywood more certainty.

What all of this means in the long run is unclear so far. It could lead to job cuts in the entertainment industry as the giants consolidate their power. The trends of streaming services getting pricier and fewer movies hitting theaters could also continue, as companies release less content, Business Insider previously reported.

Either way — as with many serious big business deals — consumers and industry insiders are finding ways to laugh through it.




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