“We expect to cancel far fewer seats today compared to yesterday and our baggage backlog at Newark has dropped more than 30% since Tuesday, and off-duty flight attendants are calling in from across the country to staff open trips,” United said in a statement Wednesday evening. United, outlining its operational response for the first time since several days of storms and other problems left thousands of customers stranded, said “we’re beginning to see improvement across our operation.” The company insists it will be ready for the July 4 holiday travel rush that begins to kick off in earnest on Thursday. On Wednesday, United said it was “all-hands-on-deck” to get the airline out of its multi-day schedule meltdown. Substantial improvements, over where we were last summer.” But he conceded in remarks to investors that his airline “still not running as optimally as it needs to run. ![]() This Friday, at the start of the four-day July Fourth holiday weekend, is projected by the Transportation Security Administration to be the busiest air travel day since the start of the pandemic.ĭelta CEO Ed Bastian said Tuesday that things are better than they were last summer. The result has been that domestic US airline capacity, as measured by the number of available seats adjusted for miles flown, is still down 10% in the current quarter compared to the second quarter of 2019, ahead of the pandemic, according to data from Cirium, an aviation analytics firm.Īnd when problems occur, finding seats for passengers whose flights have been canceled becomes a problem, particularly at busy travel periods. Rehiring staff has taken longer than planned.ĭelayed travelers sleep under the flight display screens at United Airlines' terminal in Newark International Airport on Wednesday. Many also permanently grounded older, less efficient aircraft. They were not allowed to involuntarily layoff staff but they did offer buyouts and early retirement packages. The US air travel system is unable to recover quickly from widespread weather problems because it doesn’t have the bodies to deal with the disruptions.ĭespite $54 billion of taxpayer funds funneled into airlines to keep them alive during the pandemic, most airlines greatly reduced staff during the first year of the pandemic when air travel, and fares, plunged. Storms in the Boston area caused a groundstop there early Wednesday and New York’s LaGuardia and Newark airports had a groundstop in the afternoon, keeping planes destined for those locations at the gate or parked on the tarmac at airports around the country.Īlthough that’s better than the 2,200 canceled flights in each of the last two days, or the more than 16,000 delayed flights between Monday and Tuesday, it’s hardly a smooth-running operation. ![]() As of 2:44 pm ET, FlightAware tracking service reported there were nearly 850 flights canceled and another 3,500 delays. The situation at US airports was only slightly better Wednesday. ![]() Staffing shortages, at both US airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration’s air traffic control operations, took a bad situation and made it worse. But storms were only one factor behind the travel nightmare. ![]() Hundreds of thousands of US airline customers were stranded this week as severe weather grounded planes and led to canceled flights.
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