July Fourth holiday flights: Disruptions proceed, United struggles

Flight delays and cancellations continued to mar hundreds of Fourth of July travelers on Friday, with United Airlines passengers bearing the brunt of the issues.

The Transportation Security Administration expects to screen 17.7 million people from June 29 through July 5, peaking on Friday at greater than 2.8 million people. That may be an single-day record for day by day screenings and one in every of the clearest signs yet of air travel’s strong recovery from the Covid pandemic.

Greater than 4,800 U.S. flights were delayed on Friday, though United had more delays than competitors.

By 5 p.m. on Friday, the carrier had canceled greater than 230 mainline flights, 8% of its operation, while greater than 790 flights, or greater than quarter of its schedule, were delayed, in line with flight-tracker FlightAware.

That was still far fewer than its disruptions on Thursday and a notable improvement from last weekend when a slew of thunderstorms along the East Coast at a few of the country’s most congested airports kicked off the chaos. Some airline executives blamed the Federal Aviation Administration’s shortfall of air traffic controllers for exacerbating the issues for his or her customers.

Customers throughout the week sprawled out on airport floors, waiting for hours for flight information or latest schedules, with seats on other flights, or other airlines scarce. Additionally they faced long lines for customer support and lost bags.

Even United Airlines’ CEO couldn’t get a seat out of the Recent York area. On Wednesday, Scott Kirby took a personal jet from Recent Jersey’s Teterboro Airport to Denver, Colorado.

A spokeswoman for the airline told CNBC that United didn’t pay for his flight. Kirby apologized to staff and travelers on Friday for taking the private jet when so many others were stranded.

“Taking a personal jet was the flawed decision since it was insensitive to our customers who were waiting to get home,” Kirby said in a press release to CNBC. “I sincerely apologize to our customers and our team members who’ve been working around-the-clock for several days — often through severe weather — to handle our customers.

“Watching our team firsthand with our customers at 4 different airports and through countless meetings this week, it’s clear to me they represent one of the best of United, and I regret that I even have distracted from their professionalism,” he continued. “I promise to higher display my respect for the dedication of our team members and the loyalty of our customers.”

United said on Friday afternoon that its performance was improving into the vacation weekend. The airline has been offering waivers to travelers affected in order that they can rebook their trips without paying fare differences.

However it also cautioned that: “Storms in Denver, Chicago and the East Coast will proceed to be a challenge, but most of today’s cancellations were made prematurely to provide customers time to regulate.”

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Friday called United out for the challenges over the past week, saying the airline’s disruptions were “elevated but moving in the appropriate direction.”

Airlines are under political and public pressure to run reliably after their overambitious schedules and staffing shortages worsened routine challenges like bad weather. The struggles come as travel demand bounces back from pandemic lows.

More storms and challenges like wildfire smoke from Canada are more likely to plague airlines in the times ahead, though the worst of the disruptions this week have mostly subsided. (After all, in case your flight is canceled or delayed, here’s what airlines owe you.)

Greater than 42,000 flights operated by U.S. airlines were delayed from Saturday through Thursday, and greater than 7,900 were scrubbed altogether, in line with flight-tracker site FlightAware. Greater than 5% of U.S. schedules were canceled, about 4 times higher than the cancellation rate to this point this yr.

Over that six-period period, half of United’s mainline flights arrived late, amounting to average delays of 106 minutes, in line with FlightAware data. One other 19% of its schedule was canceled.

Union leaders blamed United for a few of the problems, which stranded crews together with passengers throughout the disruptions. Flight disruptions often snowball because crews and aircraft are out of position and long delays can have them run into federally-mandated work limits.

United has been offering flight attendants triple pay to select up shifts over the height holiday period.

“United management’s failure to properly staff crew schedulers, the flight attendant support team and more has exacerbated these operational issues and left passengers and Flight Attendants waiting for answers for hours at a time,” Ken Diaz, president of the United chapter of the Association of Flight Attendants, said in a press release Thursday. “The airline actually ‘lost’ crews within the system for days on end because there was such a big breakdown in running the operation.”

Garth Thompson, a United captain and chairman of the United chapter of the Air Line Pilots Association union, accused the corporate of not investing within the operation.

“Summer flying could be difficult, but this summer can be unnecessarily memorable,” he said. “To those caught up in management’s unforced errors, I’m truly sorry.”

Each unions are engaged in contract negotiations with the corporate and are searching for compensation and scheduling improvements.

United CEO Kirby on Monday wrote to staff that a few of the issues last weekend stemmed from air traffic controller understaffing, and said that “the FAA frankly failed us” when it slashed arrival and departure rates at Newark Liberty International Airport in Recent Jersey, a serious United hub.

The FAA had warned about staffing shortages within the Recent York City area earlier this yr, and a few airlines agreed to scale back capability to avoid overloading the system.

“It led to massive delays, cancellations, diversions, in addition to crews and aircraft out of position,” Kirby wrote in a staff note, which was seen by CNBC. “And that put everyone behind the eight ball when weather actually did hit on Sunday and was further compounded by FAA staffing shortages Sunday evening.”

JetBlue also blamed the FAA for similar issues.

“We’re working with the FAA to higher understand what led to the numerous and unexpected ATC restrictions this week that affected hundreds of flights across carriers,” JetBlue’s COO, Joanna Geraghty, said in a memo to employees Wednesday. “The severity and lengthy duration of the newest programs were worse than we’ve got seen previously with similar weather and this has left tens of hundreds of our Customers inconvenienced and, in lots of cases, blaming JetBlue for a situation outside of our control.”