PHILADELPHIA (AP/KYW Newsradio) — Air travelers have been putting up with widespread delays all month, and it’s continuing again, as bad weather rakes the Northeast.
As of early Wednesday morning, more than 900 flights have been delayed in the U.S., according to FlightAware. Cancellations topped more than 670 flights. Those are troubling numbers heading into the July 4 holiday weekend, when even more people will be traveling.
The delays are being compounded by thunderstorms that raked the Northeast on Tuesday. At various times, the Federal Aviation Administration held up flights bound for LaGuardia Airport in New York and Reagan Washington National and Baltimore-Washington airports near the nation’s capital.
About 6,500 flights were delayed and about 1,900 canceled on the East Coast Tuesday. United Airlines, with a major hub in Newark, New Jersey, canceled about 500 flights or 18% of its schedule, and JetBlue canceled 16% of its flights, according to FlightAware.
Problems at one airport can lead to issues at another, and the dominoes fall from there. That was the case at Philadelphia International Airport Wednesday morning, where frustrated travelers faced long lines at ticket counters to try to get rebooked.
The situation has become less severe from the night before, but as of 9 a.m. Wedesday, 20 flights in and out of PHL were canceled and 35 delayed.
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Trish Morris and her family from Mount Airy were supposed to leave for Oregon Tuesday night. The check-in process actually started out pretty well.
“We got here with plenty of time, nice and early. Smooth sailing through security and whatnot. And we go grab a bite to eat [near the gate] and my wife gets a text message, ‘flight’s canceled,’ and it’s like, what?!” she said.
Turns out, their connection in Atlanta had been canceled, so they wouldn’t make it to their final destination. They returned to PHL in the morning, along with many others trying to rebook.
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Who’s to blame?
Travel has picked up steadily every year since bottoming out during the pandemic, and on Tuesday, the number of people flying neared 2.4 million, up 11% from last year on the same day, according to the Transportation Security Administration.
Travel is expected to peak on Thursday with more than 52,500 total flights, likely the biggest travel day of the holiday period.
If large numbers of passengers are stranded or delayed this weekend, expect federal officials and the airlines to blame each other for the mess.
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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, whose department includes the FAA, has been beating up on the airlines for more than a year. He has accused them of failing to live up to reasonable standards of customer service and suggested that they are scheduling more flights than they can handle.
The airlines are punching back.
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby blamed a shortage of federal air traffic controllers for massive disruptions last weekend at its Newark hub.
“We estimate that over 150,000 customers on United alone were impacted this weekend because of FAA staffing issues and their ability to manage traffic,” Kirby wrote in a memo to employees Tuesday night.
United could be contributing to its struggles. The Association of Flight Attendants, which represents the airline’s cabin crews, said it complained about wait times of more than three hours for workers who called a crew scheduling center that had “limited telephone lines and personnel.” The union told flight attendants near the end of their shifts to tell supervisors and find a hotel room.
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The FAA has admitted that it is understaffed at key facilities including one in the New York City region. It is training about 3,000 new air traffic controllers, but most of them won't be ready anytime soon. Last week, the Transportation Department’s inspector general said in a report that the FAA has made only “limited efforts” to adequately staff critical air traffic control centers and lacks a plan to tackle the problem.
Despite the two-day airport saga Morris and her family have endured, she has a simpler outlook on the situation.
“You gotta be positive,” she said. “Why not, right? Some things we have no control over.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.