ATLANTA – Travel headaches are piling up at the world’s busiest airport as the government shutdown stretches into another week.

What we know:

More than 800 flights into and out of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport were canceled over the weekend, according to FlightAware, while more than 1,500 were delayed. Officials say a shortage of air traffic controllers triggered the widespread disruptions.

To address the growing number of absences, the Federal Aviation Administration has ordered airlines to reduce flights at the nation’s 40 busiest airports. The cuts started at 4% last week, will increase to 6% on Tuesday, and are expected to reach 10% by Friday.

As of Monday afternoon, FlightAware reported more than 220 cancellations and over 300 delays at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Interantional Airport.

What they’re saying:

“Was supposed to fly out this morning at 10 a.m. that was canceled,” said frustrated traveler Jason Julio. He and his son have been trying to get home to New Jersey since Sunday.

“You book a trip to have a good time and make memories,” Julio said. “These are the last types of memories you want to have.”

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told CNN that 18 of the 22 air traffic controllers scheduled to work in Atlanta on Saturday didn’t show up.

“As we get closer to Thanksgiving travel, I think what’s going to happen is you’re going to have air travel slow to a trickle, as everyone wants to travel to see their families,” he said.

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The National Air Traffic Controllers Association says the ongoing shutdown is to blame.

“Congress must act immediately and end the government shutdown, and ensure that all individuals who have not been paid during this prolonged closure receive their compensation,” said Nick Daniels, president of the union.

Even with the phased flight cuts, the weekend was chaotic at airports across the country because of staffing shortages and weather issues.

Rabbi Paula Mack Drill said the travel mess has even affected a group of female rabbis attending a retreat in Georgia.

“So far, at least a dozen of us have had to cancel because there was no way to get in from all around the country and internationally,” Drill said.

The NWSL has awarded an expansion team to Atlanta as its 17th franchise, sources confirmed to ESPN.

The team will be owned by Arthur Blank’s AMB Sports and Entertainment, which also owns the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons and MLS’ Atlanta United FC. Both teams play at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, where the NWSL franchise is expected to begin play in 2028.

A spokesperson for AMB Sports and Entertainment provided the following statement to ESPN:

“We have had productive engagement with NWSL and others in its stakeholder group on the possibility of bringing an expansion franchise to Atlanta. We have nothing to announce currently as those conversations are ongoing.”

An NWSL spokesperson declined to comment.

The Athletic, which was the first to report the news, said the expansion fee would be $165 million, up from the $110 million that Denver Summit FC paid less than a year ago. NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman confirmed in September what ESPN reported in July, that the league would shift to rolling expansion rather than formal bidding processes.

“Those conversations are ongoing,” Berman said at the time. “Each of them has a different perspective on how much time they need to launch, the investments they need to make to be successful, including potentially around infrastructure, and we want to not force a square peg into a round hole.”

The NWSL will expand to 16 teams next year with the introduction of Boston Legacy FC and Denver. Berman has said several times this year that the NWSL can eventually be as big as the 32-team NFL, at least conceptually.

Atlanta and Blank have been part of the NWSL expansion conversation intermittently for nearly a decade, with many sources describing the market as a when-not-if situation once Blank is ready to join the league.

The city was previously home to women’s professional soccer when the Atlanta Beat played there in WUSA from 2001 to 2003 and in WPS in 2010 and 2011. The WPS version of the Beat built a stadium for the team in Kennesaw, Georgia, in collaboration with Kennesaw State University.

Atlanta is the seventh-largest TV media market, per Nielsen data.

Atlanta United has been a major success for MLS since launching in 2017. The team won a championship the following year and has led MLS in attendance every season since launching (except during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020), averaging over 40,000 fans per game.

Atlanta will also be the new home of U.S. Soccer’s headquarters as of next year. Blank donated $50 million to that project.

ESPN’s Jeff Carlisle contributed to this report.