Delays and Cancellations by US Airlines took away Another Weekend

Yet another weekend is wasted away as Delays and cancellations by airlines continue for a fourth day on Sunday, June 19. This bumps the numbers over the limit of thousands.

Even though the executives of airlines were anxiously hopeful and the federal government placed a little pressure on them. Nonetheless, the air travel this summer will still be hellish. 

Last Thursday, on June 16 more than 750 flights were cancelled. Again on Friday, June 17th, more than 10,000 flights were either delayed or cancelled.

Based on data from the flight-tracking service FlightAware, the number of flights within, incoming or outgoing from the United States on Friday that did not adhere to the scheduled time of departure or landing was 8,877, while the number of flights that were completely scrubbed was 1,473. 

Then again on Saturday, 6,462 flights into and out of the United States were delayed and 860 were cancelled, as recorded by FlightAware. Finally, 2,318 flights have been delayed and 827 were cancelled As of 2 p.m. on Sunday, June 19th.

Thus in sheer numbers, it appears that the efforts by the airlines to control the situation are ineffective at best when the number of total cancellations within 4 days is almost 4,000 and the number of total delays stands close to 20,000.

Another useless effort was made by the Secretary of the Department of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, when he told the airlines to get their acts together.

There is an obvious shortage of pilots caused by offering buyouts, early retirement and mandatory retirement age that cannot be met by the number of carriers. The pandemic has also caused the airlines to trim the number of staff causing them to lack the manpower required to tackle the unexpected surge in travel demands which was probably not anticipated by the airlines.