U.S. Airlines Cancel Nearly 3,000 Holiday Weekend Flights | Business Travel News

U.S. carriers canceled 2,788 flights over the long Memorial Day weekend, according to FlightAware, with about 5 percent of scheduled flights canceled on Friday, and 2 percent each on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. 

Though not nearly as extensive as those experienced during the Christmas and New Year’s Day holidays, the cancellations gave the summer travel season a rough start, even though airline executives during recent earnings calls had said that they were ready for the strong demand forecast for the period. Bad weather was the primary reason for the delays, but air traffic control issues and staff shortages due to Covid-19 cases also were to blame.

Delta Air Lines had the most cancellations of U.S. carriers—762 flights for the weekend, about 27 percent of all cancellations, according to FlightAware. On Thursday, the airline announced that it would reduce service between July 1 and Aug. 7 by approximately 100 daily departures in markets in the United States and Latin America in order to “build additional resilience in our system and improve operational reliability,” according to the company.

“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 work groups—are resulting in an operation that isn’t consistently up to the standards Delta has set for the industry in recent years,” Delta chief customer experience officer Allison Ausband said in a statement.

American Airlines during the four-day period canceled 259 flights, while United Airlines canceled 152, Southwest Airlines canceled 117 and JetBlue canceled 131, according to FlightAware. These carriers, plus Delta, accounted for 50 percent of the holiday cuts. There were 65 total Tuesday cancellations for U.S. flights, as of early afternoon.