Hundreds of flights canceled in the United States for National Day weekend
There are many travelers at airports, especially since the relaxation of health measures in most countries.
Americans traveling to the airport on Saturday for the July 4 national holiday risked having a bad surprise, as airlines have already canceled hundreds of flights due in part to staffing problems. /p>
By midday, 600 flights had already been canceled, while nearly 2,200 others were delayed, according to flightaware.com.
The situation was already difficult the day before, according to this specialized site, which listed Friday 587 canceled flights out of a total of 3060 in the world and nearly 8000 delays.
These setbacks for American passengers are an underlying trend: US airlines, which employ 15% fewer staff compared to before the pandemic, are struggling to manage the massive return of passengers to their planes.
Airline companies say they are working to solve this problem by stepping up their recruitment campaigns for pilots and other categories of personnel and by reducing the number of seats available for passengers.
Aviation officials cite other aggravating external factors, including weather conditions and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
US Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg reminded passengers on Saturday on Twitter that they were entitled to a refund in the event of a cancellation.
Delta Airlines pilots also protested Thursday to demand, among other things, salary increases with regard to the number of overtime hours worked.
It is very frankly irresponsible to [overbook]. Coming out of the pandemic, we plan more flights than we have people to fly these planes, lamented one of their union representatives, Jason Ambrosi, on the CNN channel on Saturday.
Tired, the pilots do not want to block the passengers, he assured, but it is a question of safety.
