Delta Airlines passenger jets are pictured outside the newly completed $4 billion Delta Airlines Terminal C at LaGuardia Airport in New York, June 1, 2022.
Mike Segar | Reuters
Thousands of flights were canceled and delayed over the weekend of June 13 and Father’s Day, which includes the busiest air travel day of the year on Friday, according to TSA.
More than 2.4 million people passed through TSA checkpoints on Friday, according to the agency. On the same day, airlines have canceled more than 1,100 flights in the early afternoonafter more than 1,700 cancellations on Thursday, according to the Associated Press.
More than 6,300 flights were delayed in, arriving or leaving the United States on Saturday, and 859 flights were cancelled, according to flight tracking platform FlightAware.
As of Sunday morning, more than 1,000 flights in, to or from the United States have been delayed and more than 700 have been cancelled. according to FlightAware. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City and Chicago O’Hare International Airport had the most flight delays and cancellations on Sunday.
About 2,700 flights were canceled over Memorial Day weekend.
Faced with staff shortages, and especially the pilot shortage, many airlines have canceled thousands of flights for the summer, including Southwest Airlines, which cut nearly 20,000 summer flights, according to a report from the Dallas Morning News.
Delta will cancel 100 daily departures from destinations in the United States and Latin America, affecting travel from July 1 to August 7. The airline company publish an open letter for customers on Thursday admit both labor shortages and customer frustration with canceled and delayed flights.
The travel disruption over the weekend of June 13 follows a meeting that Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg had with airline executives late Thursday to discuss how to improve their performance.
In one interview on saturday with the Associated Press, Buttigieg said his private flight from Washington to New York was canceled Friday, leaving him with a replacement driver and that he was urging airline leaders to make sure they could complete the planned summer flights with the staff they have.
Buttigieg added that the Department of Transport could take enforcement actions against airlines but warned that he wanted to wait and see the airlines’ flights over the weekend of July 4 and the rest. The return of summer will be like before.
