The airlines said they were ready to avoid the service problems that hit much of the industry last year. But between Friday and Monday, US airlines canceled 2,653 flights, or nearly 3% of their total schedules, according to the tracking service FlightAware. That’s more than they had canceled for the same holiday weekend the previous three years combined.
In 2019, the year before the pandemic, US airlines canceled only 1.2% of their scheduled flights, although they still had 6,600 scheduled flights.
“This does not bode well for the summer travel season, as we expect a repeat in the summer months as more people fly,” said Helane Becker, an analyst at Cowen Airlines, in a note to customers on Tuesday. “It was a chance for the airlines to show that the delays from last summer will not happen again this summer, and yet they will not happen again.”
Airlines have significantly fewer employees, especially pilots, than before the pandemic. They received $ 54 billion in tax aid during the health crisis to prevent accidental layoffs, but most airlines offered buyouts and early retirement packages to cut staff and save money until air traffic nearly stopped. But it takes years to get a certificate for pilots and some other airline employees.
So airlines work with little room for error when affected by bad weather, air traffic control issues or employees calling sick, which they say happened this weekend.
“More than ever in our history, the various factors that currently affect our business – weather and air traffic control, supplier staff, increased Covid cases, contribute to higher-than-planned unplanned absences in some working groups – lead to an operation that does not consistently meet the standards that Delta has set for the industry in recent years, “said Delta’s Chief Customer Service Director Alison Ausband in an online publication.
But airline critics say management shouldn’t have been taken by surprise: they knew they didn’t have the margin of error they needed. Following service problems in 2021, including at the end of the year, airlines had to anticipate these problems, said Captain Dennis Tadger, a spokesman for the Allied Pilots ‘Association, the pilots’ union at American Airlines.
“When you test the stress test of the airline’s operational model, you see the same results,” Tajer said. As flights are already booked at full capacity, “a canceled flight does not just cause a cascading effect, it causes a tidal wave of problems. It’s a déjà vu in the first place, “Tajer added.
As planes are as full as they once were, it could take longer for airlines to find passengers booked for canceled flights elsewhere to reach their destination, Tager said. Call centers are also staffed and overwhelmed by demand, especially when things go awry, as happened this weekend.
“You can wait more hours on the phone to book a flight than it will take,” he said.
Lack of staff also means higher tariffs
The shortage of staff means that US airlines are not yet able to offer all the flights needed to meet demand. The capacity of domestic flights in the United States in June, July and August this year is 5% lower than in those months of 2019, according to Cirium, a company for aviation analysis.
But travelers, especially vacationers, are eager to travel again this summer. A number of airlines reported a record number of customers who booked flights earlier this summer.
“There is a mismatch between supply and demand,” said Scott Keys, founder of Scott’s Cheap Flight, a travel booking site. “Your hopes of getting cheap flights for the summer are slim.”
This combination of record demand and limited supply means much higher prices. The consumer price index, accounting for inflation by the government, shows that tariffs in April were 33% compared to the previous year and 10.6% compared to April 2019.
The situation is probably worse for leisure travelers than these figures suggest, as business and international travel do not return to pre-pandemic levels. As these passengers pay higher prices than the more price-sensitive local travelers, going on holiday is much more expensive than before.
And it’s not just plane tickets that are more expensive.
The shortage of available vehicles pushed car rental prices in April by 70% compared to April 2019. Hotels and other accommodation increased by 20% in April compared to a year earlier and by 10.6% compared to April 2019. All these price increases are likely. to speed up even more during the busy summer travel months.
And, of course, gasoline prices are at record highs, which could make more passengers fly instead of on some trips.
Experts believe that price pressures will begin to recede as they fall, but not before.
“The huge jump in demand, I think we’ll probably run out of it this summer,” said Hailey Berg, a leading economist at Hopper, another travel booking site. “This and the normal drop in demand we see in September and October are likely to mean lower prices.
But she said it’s a good idea to book a trip for the holiday season at the end of the year if you already know your plans. Then the same dynamics of strong demand and less supply will probably be repeated.
Add Comment