Record numbers of travelers were expected to take to the skies, roads and rails this Fourth of July weekend, a busy holiday period that is testing an aviation system strained by staffing shortages and challenged by the unpredictability of weather and wildfire smoke.
AAA is predicting the long holiday weekend will surpass the previous record for Fourth of July travel, set in 2019, with more than 50.7 million people expected to venture more than 50 miles from home between Friday and Tuesday. The Federal Aviation Administration and the Transportation Security Administration said Thursday and Friday will be the busiest days in the skies.
The 4.2 million people who are expected to fly during the five-day holiday period are starting those trips as one of the nation’s largest carriers, United Airlines, scrambles to recover from days-long disruptions that forced it to cancel more than 2,400 flights since Sunday — its worst stretch since carriers scrubbed thousands of flights early in the pandemic. United’s performance has clouded a mostly unblemished summer travel period while injecting uncertainty into the industry’s preparedness for the holiday.
Weather in the New York area over the weekend, combined with a slowdown of flights into the D.C. region Sunday after an equipment issue, affected operations for several carriers, but United Airlines has been the slowest to bounce back, with hundreds of daily cancellations and delays this week.
In a statement, United said it was beginning to see improvement, noting that a baggage backlog at its Newark hub had dropped by more than 30 percent in a day.
“We’re seeing continued meaningful improvement today after an overnight effort to further repair schedules and match separated crews with aircraft,” the airline said Thursday. “As the recovery progresses, delays and cancellations will continue to decline as we head into what we expect to be a very busy holiday weekend.”
The carrier appeared to be making some progress. By Thursday evening it had canceled about 16 percent of scheduled flights that day while about 37 percent were delayed, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware. On Wednesday, it canceled 26 percent of flights while 45 percent were delayed.
Some passengers, like Stephen Pineiro, 37, who was scheduled to fly out of Newark this past Sunday, were still stuck Thursday.
“I’m really stranded, fending for myself,” Pineiro said. “What I think United should do is reach out to people or have a phone line where we can contact them. Just give us customers information, [tell us] what’s going on.”
Tensions between the airline industry and its regulator that bubbled up last summer began to resurface this week.
In a memo to employees Monday, United CEO Scott Kirby blamed the carrier’s woes on a shortage of air traffic controllers — a sentiment amplified by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), the top Republican on the committee debating a long-term funding bill for the FAA.
“The reality is DOT has known since March it doesn’t have the controllers to handle air traffic in the Northeast,” Cruz said Thursday on Twitter.
But union officials said while FAA staffing is an issue, some of the fault is United’s for not having staff in place to help customers and crews.
“We’ve been seeing this coming for some time,” said Garth Thompson, chair of the United Master Executive Council of the Air Line Pilots Association. “United, I believe, has been distracted, investing in aircraft and airport facilities, which is great. Supersonic jets, electric air taxis — that’s all great, but if you lose focus on the core operation of the airline, which requires adequately trained and adequate numbers of staff, you’re going to fall apart.”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg pushed back on Kirby’s criticism during a CNN interview Wednesday. He acknowledged challenges at the New York air traffic control facility, but said the FAA was not a major contributor to delayed and canceled flights in recent days. Buttigieg and Kirby spoke by phone on Wednesday.
“United Airlines has some internal issues they need to work through,” Buttigieg said. “They’ve really been struggling this week, even relative to other U.S. airlines.”
Buttigieg shared a chart on Twitter showing United’s cancellation rates compared with the rest of the industry, saying, “with the exception of United, airlines have recovered to a more typical cancellation/delay rate as of this morning.”
United has canceled 22 percent of scheduled flights in recent days, compared with about 7 percent for the industry, according to FlightAware. JetBlue, which also has struggled with inclement weather in New York, said it regretted that storms, air traffic control problems and ground stops have limited the number of flights the carrier can operate.
“While we work to proactively cancel flights before customers get to the airport, these ATC flight restrictions, like severe weather, are often unpredictable and can change throughout the day making planning difficult for airlines operating at these airports,” JetBlue said in a statement.
United passengers have complained about long waits on hold and in airport lines, misplaced baggage and a lack of information from the company.
Sofia Dylan Bombay, an actress, described her five-day ordeal as she, her sister and her parents, both in their 80s, tried to get to Beirut Saturday for a final round of wedding dress fittings.
The family flew from Charlotte to Dulles International Airport for a connecting flight to Amman, Jordan. The flight left the gate, sat on the runway for an hour, returned to the gate to pick up more bags, then sat for a couple more hours before being canceled for what Bombay said were mechanical issues.
From the early hours of Sunday until after noon, Bombay said she waited in line at Dulles to speak to a United representative — the first of several excruciatingly long waits.
“It’s like nothing I’ve ever, ever experienced in my life,” she said.
Eventually, the airline came up with an itinerary via Boston and Zurich, but the Boston flight was delayed, sparking concerns about a missed connection. Another flight was leaving from Dulles to Zurich, but Bombay said United’s system wouldn’t allow the switch. The family stayed in Washington, but their bags jetted off without them.
Wednesday night, the family flew to Frankfurt, where they spent Thursday before boarding a flight to Beirut.
Joseph Spagna, a college professor, was unaware of United’s problems when he tried to check in online for his flight to Syracuse, N.Y., on Tuesday and found he couldn’t. He headed to Newark Liberty International Airport, only to find chaos.
“I get there and it’s a total zoo, all the lines are a mile long,” Spagna said. He had to wait so long to check in that he missed the flight. But there was another flight that evening so he headed home, had dinner with his family, then headed back to the airport — arriving at 7:30 p.m. for the 9:30 p.m. flight.
At the gate, he was notified the flight would be late because the plane was delayed. He watched as passengers waiting for another flight were told the airline was scrambling to find pilots. United couldn’t find pilots with enough allowable work time remaining, so that flight was canceled.
After midnight, Spagna’s flight suffered the same fate. The episode left him wondering why United couldn’t keep better track of its crews.
“People were very frustrated to feel like they were being strung along for something that was never going to happen,” he said.
He tried again Wednesday, only to encounter more long lines. He plans to drive to Syracuse on Friday.
Last month, United said it expected to transport nearly 5 million people between June 30 and July 9, so clearing the current backlog will be critical to avoiding additional delays. As part of that effort, the Association of Flight Attendants said the carrier is offering triple pay to flight attendants who pick up extra trips through July 6.
Weather has been a significant factor throughout the week. The FAA on Wednesday afternoon issued a ground stop for Newark and LaGuardia airports because of thunderstorms. Another factor that looms is smoke from Canadian wildfires, which could force flight restrictions as it did at airports in several U.S. cities last month, including New York, Washington and Philadelphia.
It comes after FAA officials on Sunday temporarily halted most flights into the D.C. area’s three major airports as workers rushed to replace an overheated power cable at the air traffic control center that manages flight traffic in the region.
Buttigieg has also warned of another issue that could affect air travel if weather is poor. On Saturday, wireless carriers will boost the power of their high-speed 5G networks, creating the potential for delays for planes not retrofitted with equipment that allows them to operate safely when visibility is limited.
With more than 80 percent of nation’s domestic fleet retrofitted, disruptions are expected to be minimal, Buttigieg wrote in a letter to Airlines for America, a trade group that represents major U.S. carriers.
Despite a difficult week for travelers, including Buttigieg — who himself was caught in this week’s flight disruptions — the secretary said the overall picture was improving.
According to the Transportation Department’s air travel consumer report released Thursday, airline performance until this past week had been improving. During the first four months of the year, cancellations were below 2 percent — lower than last year’s 2.7 percent rate. However, there are other signs the system remains strained: In April, airlines reported 18 tarmac delays of more than three hours for domestic flights, compared with 13 in March.
