Pilot
shortage prompts rare flight cancellations at Delta over Thanksgiving break
PUBLISHED FRI, NOV 27 202011:40 AM ESTUPDATED FRI,
NOV 27 20203:54 PM EST
KEY POINTS
·
Airlines
have urged thousands of employees to take buyouts and leaves of absence.
·
Delta has
canceled hundreds of flights as it faced shortages of pilots.
·
Demand
remains low because of the coronavirus pandemic but has spiked over the
holiday.
Passengers check bags for a Delta Air Lines, Inc.
flight during the Covid-19 pandemic at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
in Los Angeles, California, November 18, 2020.
Patrick Fallon | AFP | Getty Images
Delta
Air Lines canceled hundreds of
flights over the Thanksgiving break as it struggled with staffing shortages
during the busiest travel week since the coronavirus pandemic began.
While demand remains less than half of last year’s
levels because of the pandemic, Transportation Security Administration airport
screenings rose above 1 million on Sunday and Wednesday, the highest in more
than eight months.
On Thursday, Delta canceled about 300 flights,
roughly 20% of its schedule and around 160 flights on Friday, around 9% of the
schedule.
“A number of factors have pressured our ability to
timely staff several dozen scheduled flights,” Delta said Friday in a
statement. “We apologize to our customers for any inconvenience these flight
cancellations have caused.”
The airline expects operations to return to normal
over the weekend and said most customers whose flights were canceled were
rebooked on flights the same day.
The operational problems, reported earlier by the
View from the Wing blog, come after some 1,800 Delta pilots took early
retirement packages that the company urged as it sought to cut costs. And
earlier this week pilots approved a deal to accept partial pay not to fly that would avoid more than 1,700
furloughs until 2022.
The changes “have left a smaller pool of pilots
qualified and ready to fly in the fleets that are seeing an increased demand
over this holiday,” said the pilots’ union, the Air Line Pilots Association.
Cuts to pilot ranks can create cascading problems
because they need to be trained and also stay current on certain aircraft and
cannot easily switch from one to another.
American
Airlines, which furloughed close
to 8,000 flight attendants last month, is also dealing with staffing issues
this week, and offered extra pay to encourage cabin crews to sign up for more
trips, said their union, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants.
Only two flights were canceled as a result of the
staffing shortages, according to a company spokesman. “We are grateful to all
of our team members who are working this week and this weekend to get our
customers where they need to go over the Thanksgiving holiday,” the airline
said in a statement.
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