DALLAS (AP) – Air travel in the US is hitting new pandemic-era highs and airlines are scrambling to keep up with the summer holiday crowds.
Despite rising numbers of coronavirus infections fueled by the Delta variant, the US set another high for air traffic on Sunday with more than 2.2 million people passing airport checkpoints, according to the Transportation Security Administration.
That’s nearly 11,000 more people screened than on July 18, and the highest number since February 28, 2020, before the U.S. felt the full burden of the pandemic. However, air traffic still fell 17% on Sunday compared to the same Sunday in 2019.
The resurgence of vacation travel, coupled with some bad weather, has resulted in delays and flight cancellations on airlines struggling to boot up after the pandemic. Airlines have thousands fewer workers than they did before the pandemic, and sometimes they have been caught short of staff despite receiving $ 54 billion in taxpayers’ money to keep employees on payroll.
By the afternoon of Monday, Spirit Airlines canceled around 290 flights – more than a third of their flight schedule – citing the weather and “operational challenges”. That was after a fifth of its flights were canceled on Sunday. The Florida-based discounter is working “around the clock to get back on track,” said spokesman Field Sutton.
The disruptions resulted in long lines at ticket counters at Orlando and Fort Lauderdale, Florida airports. Some stranded passengers speculated that the business interruption was caused by a strike or a slowdown in work. The airline and the unions believed the rumor was false.
American Airlines canceled 500 flights, or 16% of its schedule on Monday, by late afternoon.
With other planes mostly full this summer, airlines are struggling to rebook passengers for canceled flights.
David Snell, who runs an air travel company in Dallas, was stranded in Detroit after American canceled his flight home Monday night and emailed him a list of available flights – none of which were before Wednesday. When Snell looked at the flights on Tuesday, prices started at around $ 1,200, or 30,000 frequent flyer points.
“They absolutely scratch people trying to get home after cancellations,” Snell said. He said he called American three times and spent four hours on hold before buying a one-way ticket for Southwest for $ 308. “Everyone was left to their own devices.”
American Airlines spokeswoman Andrea Ahles said a seat had become vacant on a Tuesday afternoon flight from Detroit to Dallas via Philadelphia and the airline would ask Snell if he would like to take it.
The cancellations on Monday came a day after 7,400 U.S. flights arrived on Sunday with at least 15 minutes of delay – the government’s definition of delay – and more than 900 were canceled, according to the tracking service FlightAware. Almost half of the cancellations on Sunday were at the Dallas / Fort Worth International Airport, the largest American hub that was hit by thunderstorms in the afternoon and evening.
Since the beginning of July, there have been at least 5,000 delayed flights on most days, according to FlightAware figures. Southwest, American and Spirit are among the airlines with the greatest problems. For Sunday and Monday combined, Southwest delayed more than 2,500 flights and American more than 1,600.
A key senator questions several airlines to explain the high number of flight delays and cancellations. Senator Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Chairwoman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said the airlines have done a poor job managing their workforce and may not have served the purpose of taxpayer funding.
Travel recovery faces renewed public health threats as the number of new cases of COVID-19 continues to rise. The seven-day moving average of new US infections is around 80,000 per day, nearly 150% more than two weeks ago, although the increase in deaths is far less.
Airlines officials say bookings are not suffering from the Delta variant, although some said it could delay the return of business travel that airlines hoped would pick up speed this fall.
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David Koenig can be reached at www.twitter.com/airlinewriter
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