Airlines are optimistic they can resume normal operations just a few days after the government lifts its order to cut some flights at 40 busy airports, but it’s not clear how soon that will happen even though the federal shutdown is over.

The Federal Aviation Administration did announce Wednesday night that airlines won’t have to cut more than 6% of flights at those airports because air traffic controller staffing has improved significantly in the last few days. Originally the order that took effect last Friday called for those flight cuts to increase to 8% Thursday and top out at 10% on Friday.

A number of air traffic controllers missed work while they were going without pay during the shutdown, and the spike in understaffing at airport towers and regional control centers prompted the flight cut order due to concerns about safety. The existing shortage of several thousand controllers is so bad that even a small number of absences in some locations caused problems.

Officials at FAA and the Transportation Department didn’t offer any updates Thursday morning about when they will decide to lift the order. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has said the decision will be based on the safety data that experts at the FAA are watching closely.

The airlines say they will be ready and expect that normal operations will resume within three or four days after the order is lifted. Some experts have suggested that problems might linger longer than that and could affect Thanksgiving travel, so it is difficult to predict whether the airlines will be able to recover from this as quickly as they do after a major snowstorm disrupts their operations and leaves planes and crews out of position.

Airlines focused cuts on smaller regional routes to minimize the impact on main hubs. By late Thursday afternoon, only a little over 1,000 flights had been cancelled across the country. Aviation analytics firm Cirium said nearly 95% of all flights nationwide Thursday were on time.

“We are eager to resume normal operations over the next few days once the FAA gives clearance. We look forward to welcoming 31 million passengers — a new record — to our flights during the upcoming Thanksgiving travel period, beginning next Friday,” the Airlines for America trade group said Thursday.