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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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