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Airlines and F.A.A. Try to Head Off Summer Travel Meltdowns

  Having angered travelers and lawmakers, airline executives and aviation
  officials said they were reducing flights, hiring staff and making
  other changes to avoid disruptions this summer.
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  Inside Chicago’s O’Hare airport, flags of various countries hang from
  the walls above walking passengers. A large American flag is in the
  middle at the far end.
  After a series of travel meltdowns in recent years, airlines and the
  Federal Aviation Administration are under immense pressure to improve
  the flying experience this summer.Credit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The
  New York Times
  [11]Niraj Chokshi

  By [12]Niraj Chokshi
  Published May 22, 2023Updated May 23, 2023, 1:02 p.m. ET

  The number of Americans who will fly this summer could eclipse the
  prepandemic high from 2019. That would be great news for airlines, but
  it could also cause a backlash against the industry if it fails to keep
  up with demand and delays or cancels thousands of flights.

  The recovery from the pandemic has been punctuated by several major
  travel meltdowns, stranding millions of travelers and angering
  lawmakers and regulators. In recent months, the Transportation
  Department has proposed requiring greater transparency around airline
  fees and requiring companies to more fully compensate people whose
  flights are delayed or canceled.

  A major misstep could increase political pressure on lawmakers and
  regulators to take a harder line against airlines and the Federal
  Aviation Administration, which directs air traffic and has also had
  notable failures in recent years.

  “A lot of focus is going to be on the airlines, and 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 the
  airline business. “This pattern they had last year of canceling flights
  at the last minute, in many cases due to crew shortages, that’s just
  unacceptable. They’re not going to be able to do that again, I don’t
  think, not without some serious repercussions.”

  Industry executives and F.A.A. officials say they made changes after
  recent disruptions and meltdowns that should make air travel less
  chaotic and more pleasant this summer than in recent years.

Why have airlines struggled so much?

  Image
  To lessen disruptions, airlines have put in place changes including
  hiring more staff and reducing flight schedules.Credit...Jamie Kelter
  Davis for The New York Times

  Nearly every major airline and the air traffic control system have
  suffered a meltdown at some point during the recovery from the
  pandemic.

  Early on, when coronavirus vaccinations were still being developed and
  tested and restrictions prevented people from traveling, carriers
  encouraged thousands of employees to take buyouts or retire early even
  though the federal government had provided airlines with billions of
  dollars to pay employee salaries. When air travel quickly rebounded,
  airlines, like every other business, struggled to hire and train
  employees, including pilots, flight attendants and baggage handlers.

  Even when companies got a hold on hiring, airlines remained
  particularly susceptible to disruptions. During the holidays leading
  into 2022, a resurgent coronavirus sickened huge numbers of crew
  members, compounding problems caused by bad weather and resulting in
  thousands of flight cancellations nationwide.

  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
  overcome bad storms because of insufficient equipment and inadequate
  crew scheduling software and practices, stranding millions of
  travelers. Weeks later, the F.A.A. briefly stopped all flights from
  taking off nationwide after a contractor deleted a file in a dated
  pilot alerting system.

  The industry has put in place changes to minimize disruptions,
  including hiring more staff, reducing the number of flights and adding
  more resilience to their networks. They appear to be helping: Through
  early May, weather was by far the leading cause of flight delays, and
  cancellations were limited compared with 2019.

What will the summer look like?

  Image
  Dozens of major airports are expected to see double-digit growth in
  traffic this summer.Credit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times

  So far this year, air travel has returned to prepandemic levels, with
  more than 2.1 million people passing through airport checkpoints daily,
  as many as during the same period in 2019, according to Transportation
  Security Administration data. Airport traffic has already broken
  pandemic records on several days this May, according to the T.S.A.

  But traffic could soon exceed even those 2019 volumes. This Memorial
  Day weekend, the start of the summer travel season, is expected to be
  the third busiest in more than two decades, with 5.4 percent more
  people planning to fly than in the same weekend before the pandemic,
  [13]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, a trade association. That list includes airports serving big
  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 is the F.A.A. doing?

  Image
  Travelers at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
  Credit...Kendrick Brinson for The New York Times

  To keep flights running smoothly this summer, the F.A.A. is relaxing
  rules at some busy airports.

  Those rules require airlines to use or lose takeoff and landing slots
  that they’ve been assigned. But by easing that requirement from mid-May
  to mid-September, the F.A.A. hopes to encourage carriers to fly fewer,
  larger planes without fear of losing their spots. The policy applies to
  the three major airports serving New York City, as well as Ronald
  Reagan Washington National Airport.

  The F.A.A. said it had relaxed the rules partly because of a staffing
  shortfall at an air traffic control center that serves the New York
  airports and employs only about half its target number of air traffic
  controllers. Without the change, the F.A.A. said, flight delays this
  summer could increase up to 45 percent from last summer. The problems
  could reverberate nationwide because many flights connect in New York.

  The F.A.A. 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 that it had opened up 169 new routes, primarily at high
  altitudes and along the East Coast, to ease congestion.

What are airlines doing?

  Image
  The airline industry has aggressively recruited and trained new
  employees.Credit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times

  Some airlines say they’ve prepared for summer by planning to use bigger
  planes, hiring more staff and more closely watching for early signs of
  disruptions.

  At the F.A.A.’s request, several major airlines have agreed to fly
  less, but with bigger planes, at some busy airports. United, for
  example, said it planned to have 30 fewer daily departures out of its
  Newark hub than in the summer of 2019. But because it’s using larger
  planes, the airline said, it will offer 5 percent more seats in the New
  York area.

  The airline, for example, has cut the number of round-trip flights
  between Newark and St. Louis to three a day this July from four a day
  last year. But because it swapped out one of the regional jets that it
  typically uses for a larger Airbus A319, United is offering 18 percent
  more seats on that route than last year.

  “We very, very, very much want to fly a larger schedule,” said Patrick
  Quayle, a senior vice president for global network planning and
  alliances at United. “But what we care about most is running a reliable
  operation.”

  Other airlines are also planning to use larger planes on certain
  routes, a practice that has accelerated in recent years and is known as
  “upgauging.” Airlines have scheduled about 5 percent more flights
  within the United States this summer than last summer, and about 10
  percent more seats will be available, according to Cirium, an aviation
  data provider. Compared with the summer of 2019, airlines this summer
  will fly 10 percent fewer flights yet offer 3 percent more seats.

  The industry has also aggressively recruited and trained new employees.
  As of March, passenger airlines employed the equivalent of nearly
  487,000 full-time employees, the most since October 2001, according to
  an analysis of federal data by Airlines for America, the industry
  group. Delta’s chief executive, Ed Bastian, recently said the airline
  had finished a hiring spree.

  “The hiring rates that we’re at now are just normal hiring rates for
  normal attrition, not of the massive bulge that we needed to go through
  to restore the business,” Mr. Bastian told Wall Street analysts on a
  conference call in April. “And so not only are we able to reduce the
  focus on getting out and hiring people, we can take the people that
  have been doing the training and put them back in the business.”

  Airlines have also tried to be smarter about spotting disruptions
  before they result in mass delays and cancellations. After its winter
  holiday debacle, Southwest said it would better use real-time data to
  keep tabs on the health of its network. American said it had also put
  into place a system called Heat, which would allow it to quickly delay
  and cancel flights in response to mounting problems while minimizing
  the number of customers affected.

  Do you work in aviation? The New York Times wants to hear your story.
  Please share your experiences with us below, and you can learn more
  about [14]our reporting here. We especially want to hear from people
  who work for (or used to work for) airports or airlines, or who are
  part of government agencies that help keep the aviation sector running.
  We won’t publish any part of your submission without your permission.

  Niraj Chokshi covers the business of transportation, with a focus on
  airlines. [15]@nirajc
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