MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- Congressional representatives from across the country are setting a course for Washington, where the House will soon take up the spending bill the Senate passed Monday night.

If the House approves it and the President signs it, the longest government shutdown in US history will end.

But the millions of Americans impacted by the shutdown are not out of the woods yet.

In his home state of Wisconsin Tuesday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned it will take a while for air travel to return to normal.

There were still several delays at Mitchell International Airport Tuesday night, Nov. 11, for flights both in and out.

Travelers tell us they’re noticing the FAA’s mandatory cancellations are having a positive impact. But even with light at the end of a 40+ day tunnel, air travel will continue to be impacted.

Duffy told reporters, "I'm concerned that we're not going to have on day one, controllers come back into the towers right away."

And that’s why air travel delays are likely to persist for a while, even if and when the government reopens.

Since the shutdown began October 1, there have been more than 600 reports of short staffing.

Union leaders have insisted many of the controllers who have gone five weeks without a paycheck simply cannot afford to go to work anymore.

Duffy explained, “They were confronted with a real problem. Do I not feed my family or do I try to find another pathway to put food on the table?”

The TSA faces a similar problem.

Darrell English is the TSA union president for Wisconsin and Illinois airports. He told us, “Unfortunately, we did lose more officers through the shutdown, because they could not miss paycheck after paycheck.”

English says it will take lots of time to train new hires to fill in the gaps created when experienced officers had to leave for other work. “Some members had lost their apartments, some of them their mortgages became outstanding.”

22 flights were delayed at Mitchell Tuesday, and 11 more were canceled.

But Duffy said the FAA’s strategic cancelations are working to alleviate pressure on the system. “We thought it's better to manage a reduction in flights -to systematically do it, to plan for it- than to have chaos ensue."

And flyers are noticing a difference. Katherine Schowalter landed in Milwaukee from Newark, which had been near the top of the list of delays and cancelations.

She told us, “Yesterday was a nightmare. Today was unbelievable. It was as empty as I’ve ever seen it.”

She added, “You could tell. I asked them at the airport and they said it was an incredible difference between the two days.”

Some travelers were even content with their delays, in part because they’re now expected and planned for.

Schowalter’s sister, Mary Raser, flew in from San Diego. She said her flight “was delayed about an hour and a half. But we had a connection in Denver, and it was… We did it.”

But even with an end to the shutdown in sight, industry insiders are still worried about what comes after.

English, the TSA union president, said, “I'm very skeptical about how this is going to work out, if officers will be compensated for the hours they worked for.”

He said in addition to not getting paid, TSA morale is taking a huge hit, and so is their trust.

If the funding plan goes through, it only provides funding through January. English doesn’t know if his members can handle having to go through something similar again in just a few months.