The number of Americans flying this summer could eclipse the prepandemic high of 2019. That would be great news for airlines, but it could also spark a backlash against the industry if it can’t keep up with demand and delays or cancels thousands of flights. .
The recovery from the pandemic was interrupted by several major travel crises, stranding millions of travelers and angering legislators and regulators. In recent months, the Transport Department has proposed demanding greater transparency regarding air fares and requiring companies to more fully compensate people for delayed or canceled flights.
A major misstep could increase political pressure on legislators and regulators to crack down on airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates air traffic and has also seen notable failures in recent years.
“I don’t think they can afford to have a summer like they did last year,” said William J. McGee, a senior fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project, a research and advocacy group that has criticized consolidation in aviation. “The pattern they had last year of canceling flights at the last minute, in many cases due to crew shortages, is simply unacceptable. I don’t think they will be able to do that again, not without serious consequences.”
Industry executives and FAA officials say following recent disruptions and meltdowns, they’ve made changes that should make air travel less chaotic and more enjoyable this summer than it has been in years past.
Why do airlines have so much trouble?
Nearly every major airline and air traffic control system has experienced a meltdown at some point during the recovery from the pandemic.
In the early days, when coronavirus vaccines were still being developed and tested and travel restrictions prevented people from traveling, carriers encouraged thousands of workers to take buyouts or retire early, even though the federal government had provided airlines with billions of dollars to pay the salaries of employees. As air traffic quickly recovered, airlines, like any other business, struggled to hire and train staff, including pilots, flight attendants and baggage handlers.
Even as companies got to grips with hiring, airlines remained particularly susceptible to disruptions. During the holiday season leading up to 2022, huge numbers of crew members fell ill with a resurgent coronavirus, exacerbating problems caused by inclement weather and resulting in thousands of flight cancellations across the country.
Another problem: the aviation system uses technology and ways of doing business that were developed years or decades ago and are showing their age. Around Christmas last year, Southwest Airlines struggled to weather severe storms due to inadequate equipment and inadequate crew scheduling software and practices, stranding millions of travelers. Weeks later, the FAA briefly halted all flights nationwide after a contractor deleted a file in a dated pilot warning system.
The industry has made changes to minimize disruption, including hiring more staff, reducing flight numbers and increasing the resilience of their networks. It seems to be helping: Until early May, weather was by far the leading cause of flight delays and cancellations were limited compared to 2019.
What will summer look like?
So far this year, air traffic has returned to pre-pandemic levels, with more than 2.1 million people passing through airport checkpoints daily, up from the same period in 2019, according to data from the Transportation Security Administration.
But traffic could soon exceed even those 2019 volumes. Memorial Day kicks off the summer travel season and is expected to be the third-busiest in more than two decades, with 5.4 percent more people planning to fly than the same weekend before the pandemic, according to the AAA travel club .
Dozens of major airports are also expected to see double-digit growth in traffic this summer from last summer, according to Airlines for America, an industry association. That list includes airports serving major cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Seattle, and Denver. It also includes six hub airports for United Airlines, five for Delta Air Lines and four for American Airlines.
What does the FAA do?
To keep flights running smoothly this summer, the FAA is easing regulations at some busy airports.
Those rules require airlines to use or lose the takeoff and landing slots assigned to them. But by relaxing that requirement from mid-May to mid-September, the FAA hopes to encourage airlines to fly fewer, larger planes without fear of losing their spot. The policy applies to the three major airports serving New York City, as well as Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
The FAA said it relaxed the rules in part because of a staff shortage at an air traffic control center that serves New York’s airports and employs only about half the target number of air traffic controllers. Without the change, flight delays could increase by up to 45 percent this summer compared to last summer. The trouble could reverberate across the country as many flights connect in New York.
The FAA has also said it has taken steps to better accommodate flights around space launches, which have increased, particularly in Florida, but also in California and Texas. In early May, the agency announced it had opened 169 new routes, mostly at high altitudes and along the East Coast, to ease congestion.
What do airlines do?
Some airlines say they have been preparing for the summer by planning to deploy larger planes, hire more staff and pay closer attention to early signs of disruptions.
At the request of the FAA, several major airlines have agreed to fly fewer flights at some busy airports, but with larger aircraft. United, for example, said it planned to have 30 fewer daily departures from its Newark hub than in the summer of 2019. But because it uses larger planes, the airline said it would offer 5 percent more seats in the area from New York.
“We really, really, really want to fly on a bigger schedule,” said Patrick Quayle, senior vice president for global network planning and alliances at United. “But what we care about most is reliable operation.”
Other airlines are also planning to deploy larger aircraft on certain routes, a practice that has gained momentum in recent years and is known as “upgauging.” Airlines have scheduled about 5 percent more flights within the United States this summer compared to last summer, and there will be about 10 percent more seats available, according to Cirium, an aviation data provider. Compared to the summer of 2019, airlines will fly 10 percent fewer flights this summer and offer 3 percent more seats.
The industry has also been aggressively recruiting and training new workers. In March, passenger airlines employed the equivalent of nearly 487,000 full-time employees, the highest number since October 2001, according to an analysis of federal data by the industry group Airlines for America. Delta’s CEO, Ed Bastian, recently said the airline had finished hiring.
“The hiring rates we’re at right now are just normal hiring rates for normal turnover, not the massive bulge we had to go through to recover the business,” said Mr. Bastian to Wall Street analysts on a conference call in April. “And so not only are we able to reduce the focus on people leaving and hiring, we can bring the people who have done the training back into the company.”
Airlines have also tried to detect disruptions more intelligently before they lead to massive delays and cancellations. After the winter break debacle, Southwest said it would be better off using real-time data to monitor the health of its network. American said it had also introduced a system called Heat, which allowed it to quickly delay and cancel flights in response to growing problems, while minimizing the number of affected customers.
