Thousands of air travelers were being stranded worldwide over the weekend as flight cancellations abounded.
More than 1,260 flights had been canceled as of 2:30 p.m. EDT on Sunday alone, at least 350 of them flying to or from cities in the U.S., The Associated Press reported.
That was on top of more than 2,300 cancellations Friday and 1,500 more on Saturday, AP said, citing flight tracking website FlightAware.
By Sunday evening, the canceled total was 1,500, with 475 of those “within, into or out of” the U.S., according to FlightAware’s tally.
Bad weather and “air traffic control actions” caused Delta Air Lines to cancel more than 250 flights, which is 9% of its operations, on Saturday, and another 160 more nixed by Sunday, the airline told AP.
“More than any time in our history, the various factors currently impacting our operation — weather and air traffic control, vendor staffing, increased COVID case rates contributing to higher-than-planned unscheduled absences in some work groups — are resulting in an operation that isn’t consistently up to the standards Delta has set for the industry in recent years,” Delta Chief Customer Experience Officer Allison Ausband said.
Short staffing has also contributed to the backlog, with airlines having thousands fewer employees than in 2019, even as the number of travelers could be set to rebound past pre-pandemic levels.
Many forecasters believe the number of travelers will match or even surpass pre-pandemic levels. However, airlines have thousands fewer employees than they did in 2019, and that has, at times, contributed to widespread flight cancellations.
Most of the cancelations were in Newark International Airport, with Atlanta next and John F. Kennedy in New York City third, Forbes reported.
Delta had already announced last week that it would reduce its scheduled flights by 100 per day between July 1 and Aug. 7, CNBC reported.
With News Wire Services
