Airlines Are Having a Rough Start to the Summer

More than 6,500 flights were canceled over the weekend, according to data from flight-tracking website FlightAware. Delta was the worst-hit among US airlines, with more than 9% of its operations eliminated on Saturday.

🚫✈️ What’s going on?... “Weather and air traffic control, vendor staffing, [and] increased Covid case rates contributing to higher-than-planned unscheduled absences in some work groups,” per Delta’s Chief Customer Experience Officer Allison Ausband.

It could get worse for the industry, too.

• Many forecasters believe the number of travelers this summer will match or even surpass the good-ole pre-pandemic days.
• But airlines have thousands of fewer employees than in 2019, and that has at times contributed to widespread flight cancellations.

📸 The big picture: ​​All of the above + fuel prices are contributing to steeper fares and reduced carrier schedules (which also leads to higher fares). American planned to fly as much as 94% of its 2019 schedule during this quarter, while United expected to fly 87% and Delta planned to fly 84%.

• Domestic airline flights for this summer are averaging more than $400 for a round trip, 24% higher than this time in 2019, and 45% higher than a year ago, according to travel-data firm Hopper.