Delta Air Lines has scrapped plans to restart its nonstop flights between Atlanta and Colorado Springs Airport this summer after a pandemic-related hiatus of more than two years.
Limited staffing and increasing summer flight demands forced the airline to draw back on its capacity and will prevent it from restarting its Atlanta route in August as scheduled.
The Atlanta-based carrier had operated the route since 1997 before suspending it on March 31, 2020, in the early days of the pandemic. In March of this year, it announced it would resume the flights beginning Aug. 8.
“We were excited to see Delta add this flight for the East Coast connection it brought and for the entry into the Delta network for both domestic and international connections,” Greg Phillips, Colorado Springs aviation director, said Wednesday. “At this time, Delta has indicated that they are overextended for the summer demand they’re seeing and they have elected to pull back some of the capacity they had hoped to fly this summer.”
The airline is struggling to man crews and staff pilots as demands surge, Phillips said. But the airline hasn’t abandoned the idea of resuming the Springs-Atlanta route, he said.
“We have been assured that the flight is a priority for Delta and that it will be back on the schedule,” Phillips said, “though there is no timeline for that to happen at this point.”
Atlanta would have been the last major destination to be restored by the four airlines serving Colorado Springs after the…