Air passengers across the United States faced significant flight cancellations and delays this weekend due to a surge in travel demand, coupled with widespread staff shortages.
From Friday to Sunday, airlines flying within, inside, or outside the United States have canceled more than 1,400 flights. FlightAware, The flight tracking website has stranded and offended some passengers heading for the long-awaited summer vacation. In addition, according to site data, more than 14,000 flights were delayed this weekend.
Some airlines seemed to struggle to handle passenger numbers approaching or even exceeding pre-pandemic levels. On Friday, the Transportation Security Administration screened more passengers — 2.49 million people — More than any other day this year. This surpassed the 2.18 travelers screened on July 1, 2019 before the pandemic.
This experience was frustrating for some passengers on US aircraft carriers. According to FlightAware, Southwest Airlines flights were delayed by 1,048 (29%) and American Airlines flights were delayed by 28% on Saturday. United Airlines and Delta Air Lines had similar problems, 21% and 19% behind their flights. On Sunday in the middle of a holiday weekend, travelers seemed to be resting from the worst problems.
“Obviously, if a flight is delayed or canceled, it’s a disaster,” he said. Robert W. Man Jr.A former airline executive and currently runs the aviation consultancy RW Mann & Company.
Mann said about 20% of flights are delayed or canceled in a normal month. But this holiday weekend, he said, about 30% of flights were delayed or canceled and increased by 50%. “It’s a little worse than usual,” he said.
In addition to pressure on airlines this weekend, a malfunction in American Airlines’ pilot scheduling system allowed pilots to withdraw thousands of flight allocations in July. The airline said on Saturday that it did not anticipate an “operational impact” for glitches.
However Allied Pilot Association, The American Airlines Pilot Union said the airline has revived a unilaterally dropped trip without the pilot’s consent. The union said it is pressing airlines to pay “inconvenient premiums” to pilots affected by scheduling system issues.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian announced an apology last week in support of growing passenger dissatisfaction this summer.
Bastian said: Post to LinkedIn.. “Most of our flights continue to operate on time, but this level of confusion and uncertainty is unacceptable,” he added.
Delta spokesman Morgan Durant said in an email that he manages a “complex factor” of bad weather and air traffic control delays, which impacts flight crew availability. “We were working 24 hours a day to make Delta’s operations as resilient as possible in order to minimize the spillover effects of the turmoil,” Durant said. “Still, we anticipate some operational challenges this weekend.”
But as the holiday weekend progressed, a series of flight problems began to ease. By Sunday evening, Delta canceled only 1% of its flights and delayed only 15% of Southwest Airlines’ flights, according to FlightAware.
Southwest Airlines said on Sunday that it “currently offers a safe and reliable experience across today’s network with less than 10 cancellations in total.”
American Airlines and United Airlines did not immediately respond to emails asking for comment.
