American Airlines will cut hundreds of flights over the next three weeks to avoid overloading its operation as demand for summer air travel rises faster than expected.
Load Error
The airline said Tuesday that the cuts could average 50 to 60 flights a day the rest of June and between 50 and 80 a day in the first half of July. That is potentially more than 1 percent of its schedule.
On Tuesday, the airline had scrubbed 130 flights and more than 200 others were delayed by afternoon Central time, according to tracking service FlightAware.
A spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, the union which represents American’s 15,000 pilots, told DailyMail.com on Monday that the airline is suffering a major staffing shortage after furloughing 1,600 pilots during the pandemic.
However, American denied that a pilot shortage due to furloughs was a factor in the cancellations, saying that the company’s pilot training remains on track, and that all recalled pilots will complete their required training by the end of June.
Instead, the airline said that ‘unprecedented weather’ at its hubs in Dallas and Charlotte had spurred the cancellations by pushing many crew members to hit federal limits on work hours.
‘The first few weeks of June have brought unprecedented weather to our largest hubs, heavily impacting our operation and causing delays, canceled flights and disruptions to crew member schedules and our customers’ plans,’ an American spokeswoman told DailyMail.com.
‘That, combined with the labor shortages some of our vendors are contending with and the incredibly quick ramp up of customer demand, has led us to build in additional resilience and certainty to our operation by adjusting a fraction of our scheduled flying through mid-July,’ the spokeswoman added.
Earlier this week, pilots union spokesman Capt. Dennis Tajer said his colleagues who were furloughed in October last year won’t be flying again until August because they have to redo their training after so long out of the skies.
‘It’s surreal. This time last year we were canceling flights because there weren’t enough passengers. Now we’re canceling flights because there aren’t enough pilots,’ Tajer told DailyMail.com.
Video: American Airlines cuts flights over staffing crunch (Reuters)
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American contested that claim as incorrect, and said that it has ramped up staffing quickly to meet the surge in demand for summer travel, insisting that all recalled pilots would be ready to fly by June.
Though American and other U.S. airlines were supposed to be barred from furloughing workers during the pandemic as a condition of billions they received in federal aid to help cover payrolls, American moved to cut staff after the aid lapsed last October.
The aid was reinstated in late December, and overall America took about $9.5 billion in federal Payroll Support Program funding.
American also encouraged thousands of workers to quit or retire, and now finds itself with a smaller staff as travel demand approaches pre-pandemic levels.
A spokeswoman said American is making the most cuts on routes where it has multiple flights to provide backup options for rebooking passengers on other planes.
Leisure travel is picking up as more Americans get vaccinated against COVID-19 and states continue to ease travel restrictions.
More than 2 million travelers passed through airport security checkpoints Sunday and again Monday, with Sunday´s crowds marking the highest number in 15 months, although still below 2019 levels.
American said it has employees on reserve, but bad weather at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina can cause crews to exceed federal limits on how long they can work.
She said the airline is also affected by labor shortages at vendors that provide catering drivers and people who push wheelchairs.
The cutbacks come after American moved aggressively to restore service that was cut during the pandemic.
American had scheduled around 5,800 flights a day through July, about 87 percent of its schedule for the same period in 2019, according to data from aviation researcher Cirium.
‘Our focus this summer — and always — is on delivering for our customers no matter the circumstance,’ the American spokeswoman told DailyMail.com of the flight cuts.
‘We never want to disappoint and feel these schedule adjustments will help ensure we can take good care of our customers and team members and minimize surprises at the airport.’
The airline industry´s difficulties this month haven´t been limited to American, which is based in Fort Worth, Texas.
Last week, technology problems caused Dallas-based Southwest Airlines to delay several thousand flights and cancel hundreds more.
More than 400 Southwest flights were running behind on Tuesday, according to FlightAware.
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