During this July Fourth weekend, U.S airlines throughout the country have canceled or delayed thousands of flights across airports in the U.S due to staff and pilot shortages.
In a quarterly earnings call held in April, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said that “[t]he pilot shortage for the industry is real, and most airlines are simply not going to be able to realize their capacity plans because there simply aren’t enough pilots, at least not for the next five-plus years.” Airlines will try to use the shortage by hiring over 12,000 pilots in 2022.
Airlines blamed the flight cancellations and delays on the understaffed Federal Aviation Administration, but the FAA had disputed that claim.
The number of travelers during the holiday weekend resembled numbers from before the pandemic. On Friday, July 1st, the TSA had scanned 2,490,490 passengers at security checkpoints across airports. According to TSA Spokesperson Lisa Farbstein, that’s the most since February 11th, 2020.
According to FlightAware, airlines on Friday canceled 464 U.S flights with more than 6,600 delayed, comprising 28.8% of total flights. The next day, 5,893 flights were delayed and 655 were canceled. On Sunday, 930 flights were delayed, with over 200 canceled. That Sunday morning, there had already been 53 flights canceled for July 4th.
These cancellations were similar to those during Juneteenth and Father’s Day weekend, which was at that point the busiest air travel day this year and had 3,300 flights canceled during the weekend. That holiday weekend also faced a similar staffing and pilot shortage.
When Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had an interview last month with ‘The Associated Press,’ he stated his plans to wait out the mass cancellations for the rest of the summer and determine later on if his department should act against the airlines. In a tweet on Saturday, he said that airlines will refund on canceled flights, writing “[a]irlines offer miles as compensation for some travel issues, and you can often negotiate on this. That’s between you and the airline, but you are entitled to cash refunds for canceled flights — that’s a requirement that we will continue to enforce.”
Kathleen Bangs, the FlightAware spokeswoman, expects for the mass amounts of cancellations to calm down by fall as airlines adjust their schedules and seek out new pilots and airline workers.
Link to Article: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/record-july-4th-travel-weekend-thousands-flights-delayed-cancelled-rcna36497
In a quarterly earnings call held in April, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said that “[t]he pilot shortage for the industry is real, and most airlines are simply not going to be able to realize their capacity plans because there simply aren’t enough pilots, at least not for the next five-plus years.” Airlines will try to use the shortage by hiring over 12,000 pilots in 2022.
Airlines blamed the flight cancellations and delays on the understaffed Federal Aviation Administration, but the FAA had disputed that claim.
The number of travelers during the holiday weekend resembled numbers from before the pandemic. On Friday, July 1st, the TSA had scanned 2,490,490 passengers at security checkpoints across airports. According to TSA Spokesperson Lisa Farbstein, that’s the most since February 11th, 2020.
According to FlightAware, airlines on Friday canceled 464 U.S flights with more than 6,600 delayed, comprising 28.8% of total flights. The next day, 5,893 flights were delayed and 655 were canceled. On Sunday, 930 flights were delayed, with over 200 canceled. That Sunday morning, there had already been 53 flights canceled for July 4th.
These cancellations were similar to those during Juneteenth and Father’s Day weekend, which was at that point the busiest air travel day this year and had 3,300 flights canceled during the weekend. That holiday weekend also faced a similar staffing and pilot shortage.
When Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had an interview last month with ‘The Associated Press,’ he stated his plans to wait out the mass cancellations for the rest of the summer and determine later on if his department should act against the airlines. In a tweet on Saturday, he said that airlines will refund on canceled flights, writing “[a]irlines offer miles as compensation for some travel issues, and you can often negotiate on this. That’s between you and the airline, but you are entitled to cash refunds for canceled flights — that’s a requirement that we will continue to enforce.”
Kathleen Bangs, the FlightAware spokeswoman, expects for the mass amounts of cancellations to calm down by fall as airlines adjust their schedules and seek out new pilots and airline workers.
Link to Article: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/record-july-4th-travel-weekend-thousands-flights-delayed-cancelled-rcna36497