Just like last year’s summer, travel woes are back ahead of the 4th of July long weekend. According to Flight Aware, flight delays reached nearly 3,000 while there are approximately 800 canceled flights.
The East Coast had the worst disruptions due to thunderstorms, as numerous flights coming from Los Angeles International Airport going to the East Coast were either delayed or canceled.
On Tuesday night, The Federal Aviation Administration decided to ground flights going to three major airports in New York City. Earlier that day, the agency also decided to hold flights heading to Reagan Washington National and Baltimore-Washington Airports.
Worst is Yet to Come?
The FAA predicted that Thursday is the heaviest travel day for this year’s 4th of July holiday period. The FAA expects a total of 52,500 flights that day.
Aside from the number of passengers, there’s the bad weather that could also prevent some planes from flying because of the possible problems with 5G wireless service.
On early Wednesday, United Airlines had the worst cancelations among other airlines. Having a major hub in Newark, New Jersey, United Airlines canceled more than 300 flights representing 12% of its scheduled flights by noon. In contrast, New York’s JetBlue canceled 9% of its scheduled flights that day.
FAA Failed Us?
According to United CEO Scott Kirby in a memo to employees, “The FAA frankly failed us this weekend.” He continued saying that “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.”
This isn’t the first time Kirby criticized the FAA. In his recent CNBC interview, he said that “the biggest issue with us is Air Traffic Control. Every day, we wake up with Air Traffic Control delays.”
According to the Transportation Security Administration’s numbers, around 2.6 million people every day have been flying in the United States. That’s right around the same number of people traveling in 2019 before the pandemic.
