According to online flight tracking services, by 5 pm Eastern Time on Friday, more than 1,300 US flights had been canceled and another 5,000 were suffering flight delays. The worst-hit airlines were American Airlines and Delta Air Lines.
"The vast majority of that is weather-related," American Airlines spokesperson Curtis Blessing told USA Today, noting that storms in the Miami, Florida area had impacted a large number of flights for the air carrier.
The trouble carried over from the day prior, when more than 1,700 flights were canceled and 8,700 delayed, amounting to 31% of all flights in the US that day. It came as US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg met with airline executives, demanding answers about how they had changed their protocols to avoid the chaos seen several times this year already, most notably during the Memorial Day holiday last month, during the July 4 holiday weekend.
“I let them know that this is a moment when we are really counting on them to deliver reliably for the traveling public,” Buttigieg told NBC News.
In other cases, delays were caused by a shortage of open airport gates, especially at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport in North Carolina, a major travel hub. At New York City’s LaGuardia Airport, more than one-third of flights were canceled on Thursday and at Newark Liberty, one of New York’s other main air hubs, more than one-quarter of flights were canceled.
In addition to bad weather, airline unions have blamed corporate leaders for failing to replace pilots who retired or took leave during the travel slump earlier in the pandemic. On Wednesday, American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said the company would revise its pay standards for its 14,000 pilots, acknowledging that standards had changed since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020.
Sick workers could also be contributing to the delays, with airlines that canceled their mask-wearing policies after the federal government lifted them earlier this year showing a marked increase in flight delays and cancellations, according to CBS News.