The 4th of July weekend this year was a busy time for travelers. Some used their cars while others boarded planes. When the pandemic started, airlines were barely surviving due to lockdowns and travel restrictions. But as more people get vaccinated, travelers are more confident to explore new places. According to American Airlines, they carried 2.7 million passengers from July 1 to July 5.
In addition to this, the airline ran more than 26,000 mainline and regional flights. That’s twice as many as last year’s numbers according to David Seymour who is American Airlines’ chief operating officer.
Does it mean that we already have the same numbers as 2019? Unfortunately, we’re not yet there. Despite the spike in domestic travel in 2021, the Transportation Security Administration still recorded fewer travelers compared to 2019. During the 4th of July weekend, TSA recorded 10 million people passing through airport security for five days. That’s 18% lower compared to 2019’s 12.2 million travelers.
Labor Shortage Woes
American Airlines had more flights than United Airlines and Delta Air Lines. However, last month, American announced that it is going to downsize the number of flights during the first half of July. Around 1,000 flights were removed from American Airlines’ schedule for July.
American Airlines last month canceled hundreds of flights in one weekend due to many issues including labor shortage and maintenance issues. There were also reports that American Airlines doesn’t have enough pilots to fly their planes. It was reported that they were still retraining pilots who haven’t flown for months due to the smaller demand from travelers last year.
To address the labor shortage, American Airlines hired an additional 300 customer operations employees in its Dallas hub to meet the growing domestic travel demand from the entire airline industry. American Airlines isn’t the only airline suffering from manpower shortages. Delta Airlines is also looking to hire as many as 1,300 people for different positions.
