(WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- The Department of Transportation is telling airlines to maintain their schedules after another weekend in which there were thousands of flight delays and cancellations.
Weather and ongoing staff shortages were responsible for the perfect storm of flight delays and cancellations this past weekend.
There have been times in recent history when the airline industry has been hit by a wave of delays, but Depaul University professor Joe Schwieterman tells the WBBM noon business hour that air carriers are now unable to bounce back.
"What we're seeing now, which we didn't see two, three years ago when these delays occur, they kind of ripple through the system and leave to extended cancellations or extended delays as airlines just less able to recover and that's where that labor problems seems to be rearing its head."
There are a number of reasons for the airline worker shortage. Some employees furloughed at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown found other jobs. Schwieterman said cargo carriers are now competing for pilots who work for the big passenger airlines.
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