DALLAS – Matthew Vohen chose a terrible weekend for his first ever commercial air travel.
The flight from Wisconsin to Corpus Christi was pleasant and the weekend visit to a friend’s along the Texas Gulf Coast and San Antonio was a delight. But the night before his return flight, Vohen received a text message from American Airlines.
First, his flight to DFW International Airport was delayed at 6:29 p.m. Then it was canceled. He made it to Dallas on a late night flight but then had to spend the night and didn’t return to Milwaukee until the day after his original arrival, forcing him to miss work.
Little did Vohen know that Texas’s two major airlines, Fort Worth-based American and Dallas-based Southwest, were in the middle of a seven-day route that saw thousands of flights having thousands of flights again due to technical glitches, staffing issues, and a fundamental difficulty ramp up to see an unexpectedly high surge in summer travelers.
“I loved my trip so much that I will probably do it again. I might even do it again with American Airlines,” said Vohen, a 26-year-old who works for a security company. “The flight attendants and everything else have been great with their service. This is something they can’t control and I can’t control it. I can’t blame them.”
The airlines hoping for a quick return to summer travel may be getting more than they expected after a year of convincing passengers that it is safe to fly. Since the beginning of the summer travel season on Memorial Day weekend, the flying experience has been plagued by technical problems, staff shortages at airlines and airports, and heightened tension in the air, which has led to a record number of recalcitrant passenger complaints.
Not only American and Southwest had their problems, but also smaller airlines like Allegiant.
The travel pain continued on Friday when Southwest canceled an additional 155 flights and delayed 682 more, nearly a quarter of all flights on the company’s schedule.
There has been airport fights, fights in airplanes, long lines, closed airport restaurants, and a host of other growing problems right when the aviation industry needs passengers most.
It has not deterred passengers who have returned to air travel in large numbers since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 2 million have passed the Transportation Security Administration checkpoints in seven days since June 11. While the number of air passengers is still 23% below pre-COVID-19 levels, U.S. airlines’ planes were about 87% full on average for the week. ends on June 20, according to the industry organization Airlines 4 America.
On June 13th, around 220,000 passengers came through DFW International Airport, which this year is the second largest airport in the country.
American canceled hundreds of flights over the weekend of Vohen’s trip. The airline blamed it for bad weather occupying backups across much of the country in late May and June.
Dennis Tajer, a spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, said the airline “may have bitten off more than it could chew” when it set a summer flight schedule 20% larger than its competitors.
Americans reservations agent and fleet workers unions, the staff who prepare planes between flights, have complained about understaffing and mandatory overtime.
To address the issues, American planned to cut its schedule by 1% for the first half of July. In addition, an agreement was reached with reservations staff to limit the mandatory overtime.
“Our focus this summer – and always – is on delivering for our customers, whatever the circumstances,” said American Airlines spokeswoman Shannon Gilson in a statement. “We never want to disappoint and are of the opinion that these flight plan adjustments will help us to take good care of our customers and team members and minimize surprises at the airport.”
The canceled flights account for about 1% of American’s daily flights in July, or about 72 flights a day, according to the company.
Casey Murray, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, said all of his airline’s working groups are facing labor shortages and mandatory overtime.
“The aggressive network plan for June and July was worrying because we are seeing bottlenecks from top to bottom,” he said.
Southwest’s problems stemmed from two technical issues. First, the airline’s weather data provider failed and the airline found it unsafe to fly for about two hours. Then, the next day, June 15, the reservation software puts flights on the sidelines again. On its worst day, Southwest canceled more than 500 flights and more than 42% of its total operations were either canceled or delayed, according to flight tracking website Flightaware.com.
Kelly Burns, of Savannah, Georgia, was one such air traveler who struggled to fly American Airlines to Harlingen via DFW in May to visit his family. Her connecting flight to El Paso was on the runway for 30 minutes before she had to return to the gate with engine problems. Since there were no more flights from DFW to Harlingen that evening, she had to book a flight to Corpus Christi – more than three hours away by car – and ask her father to pick her up.
Then the SMS came late. First it was two hours, then four. Your flight, which was originally supposed to depart from DFW for Corpus Christi at 3 p.m., did not start until 11 a.m.
“We asked about our luggage (in Corpus Christi) and the guy said it was under five hours of luggage and they couldn’t get it for us,” said Burns. “The return trip was associated with delays and undisclosed gate changes that gave us only a minute to get on the plane.”
Airlines have been historically reliable during the pandemic. Delays and cancellations decreased, there were fewer flights and fewer overcrowded planes. Even weather issues during the busy holiday periods went relatively smoothly.
Airlines, especially American ones, were hoping for a quieter summer this year after operational difficulties in 2018 due to a dispute with mechanics and charges in 2019 from the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max.
And as vaccine distribution increased this spring, travel industry officials eagerly awaited the return of passengers during the summer peak, even if some segments such as business travel and international air travel were still subdued.
But airports struggle to get enough workers to occupy restaurants and push wheelchairs. American made some of its delays due to problems with contractors.
The Chick-fil-A in Dallas Love Field has closed at 2:30 p.m. in the past few weeks because the operator cannot find enough workers for the restaurant, said airport operations director Mark Dübner.
Canceled flights and closed concessions are inconvenient, but unruly passengers can be dangerous. The federal aviation and security authorities see an unusually high number of complaints about “misconduct”. The FAA has received more than 3,100 complaints about unruly passengers so far this year, of which approximately 2,350 were from passengers who refuse to wear face masks.
The TSA said Thursday it would resume self-defense training for flight attendants and pilots, an optional program that was suspended during the pandemic.
“In view of the increase in recalcitrant passenger incidents, the TSA is keen to equip the flight crew with another instrument to protect our skies,” said a press release from the agency.
TSA said passengers passing through checkpoints in Louisville, Kentucky and Denver assaulted security officers this month. The Denver passenger reportedly bitten two agents and the incident is being investigated.
Passengers are struggling to adjust to flight norms after a year or near-empty airports, said Steve Karoly, a former TSA assistant administrator who now works for airport security company K2 Security in Bethesda, Maryland.
“Everyone gets stressed when flying, that’s just the way it is,” said Karoly. “But a lot of people haven’t flown in a long time or have been to crowded places like an airport.”
And passengers have prepared for the security changes earlier, from the security lines that were installed after September 11, 2001, to terrorist attacks, to taking off their shoes at checkpoints.
“It will all fizzle out at some point,” said Karoly. “Many of the issues would be resolved if passengers showed up earlier to have more time to go through the process stress-free.”
Despite the spate of delays, cancellations and planes being turned over for unruly passengers, the travel experience is returning to normal, said travel blogger Brett Snyder of Crankyflier.com.
“All the problems with bad behavior and cancellations, it’s still a very small fraction of the total flights,” said Snyder. “In general, it’s going back to normal, and if you remember, sometimes normal is good and sometimes bad.”
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