Memorial Day Air Travelers Hit With Heavy Flight Cancellations
Flight disruptions spread across the US on Memorial Day weekend, a turbulent start to the summer travel season two years since the virus pandemic began.
On Monday morning, Flight Aware's plane tracking website reports 272 cancellations within, into, or out of the US. There were 546 cancellations on Sunday, and hundreds more on Saturday and Friday, totaling at least a thousand across the holiday period.
One of the most significant headaches over the weekend was when Delta Air Lines canceled more than 250 flights or 9% of its US operations on Saturday.
In an email statement, Atlanta-based Delta told AP News that Saturday's cancellations resulted from bad weather and "air traffic control actions."
Angry passengers tweeted their woes from airports.
"So our flight from Savannah to Miami has just been canceled out of the blue not other flights available on the day wtf do we do," one traveler said.
"Instead of canceling the flight hours ago, delta had me waiting from 3:50 pm till 12:04 am just to tell me my flight was canceled," another said.
Demand destruction has yet to be reached despite soaring domestic airfare prices, as TSA throughput data at US airports shows air travel is back to pre-COVID levels.
According to travel data firm Hopper, this weekend's average cost for a plane ticket was more than $400 round trip, 24% higher than this time in 2019 and 45% higher than a year ago.
Multiple major airlines, such as Delta, JetBlue Airways, and Alaska Airlines, recently announced a reduction of flights this summer due to a pilot shortage.
Combine reduced flights and soaring jet fuel costs -- on top of increasing flight demand, ticket prices have already catapulted with a record monthly jump in March. And could go higher this summer.
Flight cancellations this past holiday weekend may suggest a rocky summer for airline carriers. Unreliable airlines and record-high ticket prices, at what point do travelers give up on flying?
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