Airlines Remove Flights Ahead Of Busy Summer Travel Season
Major airlines are removing flights at a time when the busy summer travel season is taking off.
Delta Air Lines announced it will reduce 100 daily departures from July 1 to August 7 to "minimize disruptions and bounce back faster when challenges occur."
"More than any time in our history, the various factors currently impacting our operation – weather and air traffic control, vendor staffing, increased COVID case rates contributing to higher-than-planned unscheduled absences in some workgroups – are resulting in an operation that isn't consistently up to the standards Delta has set for the industry in recent years.
"We deeply appreciate the energy and efforts of our people and the confidence of our customers as we adapt and pivot to ensure we provide the airline-of-choice experience we're so proud to be known for," Chief Customer Experience Officer Allison Ausband said.
The airline's goal is to "build additional resilience in our system and improve operational reliability for our customers and employees."
Multiple airlines are reducing flights, including JetBlue Airways and Alaska Airlines.
JetBlue anticipates "industry challenges and heavy demand into the summer, we are planning more conservatively and trying to be proactive where we can with cancellations due to disruptive weather and air traffic control events."
Alaska Airlines said flights would be reduced this summer because of a pilot shortage. And to increase summer reliability, airlines are scrambling to hire pilots and more crew.
According to Delta, Memorial Day weekend, one of the busiest travel periods of the year, could see TSA throughput data at 2.5 million over the weekend, a 25% increase from last year.
Combine reduced flights and soaring jet fuel costs -- on top of increasing demand for travel this summer, ticket prices have already catapulted with a record monthly jump in March.
So at what point does demand destruction hit airfare? Paying double or triple, or even higher to fly across the country is out of reach for many Americans. Still, some can always put travel expenses on credit cards or Affirm monthly payments.
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