Let's face it, most people leave or return for summer vacation on a weekend - Friday, Saturday or Sunday. In fact, the same could be said of a business trip or a quick jaunt home. For the most part, everything is structured around the work schedule.
Well, once again, the airlines are having a tough time adapting to the heavy demand in air travel coupled with the lowered supply of workers.
It's been another rough weekend for domestic carriers, and with the July 4th holiday now just days away it looks like it will be absolute … well, not chaos...what's worse than chaos? Pandemonium? Turmoil? Madness? Bedlam?
This weekend was another troublesome time in the air. According to the flight tracking service flightaware.com, there were more than 11,200 flight delays and just over 1,110 cancellations combined on Friday, June 24 and Saturday, June 25. That's on top of the 20,000-plus delays from the Juneteenth holiday weekend last week.
And here comes the July 4 holiday weekend.
The airlines are feeling the pressure, to the point where their main U.S. lobby group, Airlines for America, appeared to make a pre-emptive strike ahead of the big holiday by saying the Federal Aviation Administration bears some blame for the mess as well.
The pressure is also mounting on Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who said last week that the government - particularly his agency - has the power to compel U.S. airlines to hire more workers to deal with staff shortages plaguing the industry.
But Buttigieg tempered his suggestion by saying he would wait to see what happens with the long Fourth of July holiday, a peak travel period especially this year with July 4 falling on a Monday.
He might not have the luxury of waiting that long.
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