Update: Hundreds of flights worldwide were canceled by Sunday evening, adding to the mounting number of scrubbed flights during the busy Memorial Day holiday weekend in the US. About 1,460 flights had been canceled as of 7pm EDT Sunday, according to flight tracking website FlightAware. That followed more than 2,300 cancellations Friday and another 1,500 on Saturday. Delta Air Lines canceled the most flights among major US airlines, with more than 250 flights, or 9% of its operations, eliminated Saturday. One hundred and sixty Delta flights were canceled by Sunday evening, according to FlightAware. Our original story from Saturday follows:
Airline travelers are not only facing sticker shock this Memorial Day weekend, the kickoff to the summer travel season. They're also dealing with a pileup of flight cancellations. More than 1,400 flights were canceled as of Saturday evening, according to flight tracking website FlightAware. That followed more than 2,300 cancellations on Friday. Delta Air Lines suffered the most among US airlines, with more than 240 flights, or 9% of its operations, eliminated on Saturday. Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, where Delta is based and has its largest hub, was heavily affected by the travel delays. On Saturday, 5% of the flights there were canceled, while 11% were delayed.
Delta said in an email to the Associated Press that Saturday’s cancellations were due to bad weather and “air traffic control actions,” adding that it's trying to cancel flights at least 24 hours in advance this Memorial Day weekend. “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,” said Delta Chief Customer Experience Officer Allison Ausband in a post.
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Airlines and tourist destinations are anticipating monster crowds this summer as travel restrictions ease and pandemic fatigue overcomes lingering fear of contracting COVID-19 during travel. However, airlines have thousands fewer employees than they did in 2019, and that has at times contributed to widespread flight cancellations. People who are only now booking travel for the summer are experiencing the sticker shock. Domestic airline fares for summer are averaging more than $400 for a round trip, 24% higher than this time in 2019, before the pandemic, and a robust 45% higher than a year ago, according to travel-data firm Hopper.
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