Ian Patrick, FISM News
As summer approaches and Americans look to reinvigorate the travel industry, reports have trickled in showing thousands of flights being canceled or delayed over the Memorial Day weekend.
The New York Post, using flight-tracking site FlightAware, reported that on Saturday over 1,500 flights were canceled, while Friday saw 2,300 cancellations. FlightAware revealed that Sunday and Monday saw an additional 1,642 and 1,644 cancellations respectively, for a total of over 8,000 flights being grounded over the four-day Memorial Day weekend.
As of the time of this writing, an additional 983 cancellations and 5,668 delays have been reported for Tuesday, with Delta suffering the most from the weekend travel disruptions.
The Post writes that on Saturday Delta cancelled “250 flights, or 9% of its operations.” CNBC reports that Delta cancelled “159 flights, or 6%” of its scheduled takeoffs while saying that “87% of customers were rebooked on flights that departed within around 11 hours of their original time.”
On Monday, Delta cancelled another 138 of its scheduled flights representing about 4% of their schedules. The airline has received flak for how it has handled cancellations and delays with travelers taking to social media to complain about how the company messed up their rebooking itineraries.
Airlines cited severe weather, staffing shortages, and an uptick in COVID-19 cases as among the causes of the travel disruptions.
Despite the continued airline woes and sky-high gas prices, the Memorial Day weekend still saw travelers out in droves.
Reuters reports that the U.S. Transportation Security Administration screened “6.5 million air passengers . . . during the first three days of the holiday travel period.” This is still a 10% decrease from the same time period in 2019, but still above recorded levels for the same period in 2021.
Some airlines have begun cutting down their summer flight schedules as travel costs skyrocket with more demand than supply. CNBC reports that Delta is “cutting about 100 flights a day from July 1 through Aug. 7,” which accounts for about 2% of Delta’s scheduled flights for the season.
Other airlines such as Alaska, JetBlue, and Spirit are following suit and cutting back their summer schedules as well.
Prices may prove to be a growing problem for the still struggling airline industry. CBS News reports that prices for domestic flights this summer “are averaging more than $400 for a round trip, 24% higher than this time in 2019” and 45% more than in 2021.