Air travelers in the United States faced massive flight cancellations and delays this weekend caused by a boom in travel demand combined with widespread staff shortages.
From Friday to Sunday, airlines flying within, to or out of the United States canceled more than 1,400 flights, according to FlightAware, a flight-tracking website, stranding and angering some travelers headed for the long-awaited summer vacation. In addition, more than 14,000 flights were delayed this holiday weekend, according to the site.
Some airlines appear to be struggling to cope with passenger volumes approaching, or in some cases even exceeding, pre-pandemic levels. On Friday, the Transportation Security Administration screened more passengers — 2.49 million people — than any other day this year. This was up from 2.18 passengers checked on July 1, 2019, before the pandemic.
The experience was disappointing for some passengers on American carriers. On Saturday, 1,048 — or 29 percent — of Southwest Airlines flights were delayed, as were 28 percent of American Airlines flights, according to FlightAware. United Airlines and Delta Air Lines had similar problems, with 21 percent and 19 percent of their flights also delayed. On Sunday, in the middle of the bank holiday weekend, commuters seemed to relax from the worst of the problems.
“Obviously, if your flight is delayed or canceled, it’s a disaster,” said Robert W. Mann Jr., a former airline executive who now heads airline consulting firm RW Mann & Company.
In a typical month, Mr. Mann noted, about 20 percent of flights are delayed or canceled. But this holiday weekend, he said, it was about a 30 percent to 50 percent increase. “It’s a little worse than usual,” he said.
Adding to the pressure on air carriers this weekend was an error in the pilot scheduling system at American Airlines that allowed pilots to cancel thousands of flights for July. The airline said on Saturday it did not expect any “operational impact” due to the error.
But the Allied Pilots Association, American Airlines’ pilot union, said the airline unilaterally reinstated the canceled trips without the pilots’ consent. The union said it was pressuring the airline to pay an “inconvenience premium” to pilots affected by the scheduling system problems.
In a sign of growing passenger frustration this summer, Ed Bastian, CEO of Delta Air Lines, issued an apology last week.
“I know many of you may have experienced disruptions, sometimes significant, to your travels as we build our business from the depths of 2020 while meeting record levels of demand,” Mr. Bastian wrote in a LinkedIn post. He added: “While the majority of our flights continue to operate on time, this level of disruption and uncertainty is unacceptable.”
In an email, Morgan Durant, a Delta spokesman, said the airline is managing the “combining factors” of bad weather and air traffic control delays that are affecting crew availability. The airline “worked around the clock to make Delta’s operations as resilient as possible to minimize the ripple effect of the outages,” Mr. Durrant said. “However, some operational challenges are expected this holiday weekend.”
However, as the holiday weekend progressed, the wave of flight problems began to subside. By Sunday evening, Delta had canceled just 1 percent of its flights, and only 15 percent of Southwest Airlines flights were delayed, according to FlightAware.
Southwest said Sunday it was providing “a safe and reliable experience on our network today with fewer than 10 cancellations total” for the day.
American Airlines and United Airlines did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.
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