DALLAS (AP) — Travelers flying home from a Fourth of July getaway faced flight delays Monday, but airlines canceled fewer flights than in the days leading up to the holiday weekend.
Since holiday weekend travel picked up on Thursday, airlines have canceled more than 2,200 US flights and another 25,000 have been delayed.
Airports were full.
More than 9 million fliers flocked to US airports between Thursday and Sunday, reaching 2.49 million, a pandemic-era record, on Friday, according to Transportation Security Administration data.
By late Monday afternoon on the East Coast, more than 2,200 US flights had been delayed and more than 200 canceled, according to FlightAware.
The good news: those numbers have dropped sharply in recent days.
Flying during the peak holiday season has always been a challenge. Large crowds and summer thunderstorms can quickly disrupt airline operations. That summer was compounded by a shortage of pilots and other workers.
“It’s not just in North America, it’s everywhere,” said John Grant, an analyst for OAG, a UK-based travel dates provider. “It’s a combination of available resources and demand that is increasing much faster than anyone expected.”
Grant said labor shortages in Europe and North America have affected airlines, their suppliers, including catering and jet fuel, airports and air traffic controllers. He sees no reason to think the situation will improve this summer.
In the US, the rate of flight cancellations in the past two weeks has risen 59% compared to the same period in 2019, before the pandemic, likely due to a combination of weather, staff shortages and air traffic problems.
However, the rate of flight delays is only slightly worse than it was last summer before the pandemic — 19.7 percent then, 21.5 percent now, according to FlightAware numbers.
While some of the disruptions were due to bad weather, particularly along the East Coast for part of the weekend, airlines also made unprovoked mistakes.
American Airlines accidentally denied pilot assignments for thousands of flights in July due to an error in its scheduling program. An airline spokesman said on Monday that the problem had been fixed and crew assignments had been restored for the “vast majority” of flights. He said the issue had no effect on July 4 travel.
Ed Sicher, the new president of the union representing American pilots, said the airline had flouted their contract by unilaterally reassigning pilots to about 80 percent of the affected flights.
Sicher said the union and the airline are negotiating additional pay for pilots whose trips were terminated, then reinstated during “this debacle.”
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