May 22—MIAMI and CHEYENNE — Your bags are packed, tickets are in hand and you’re ready to go. Will disruption-plagued airlines be able to avoid a spate of delays and cancellations?
“I don’t think they are able to handle the crowds,” said Clint Henderson, managing editor of The Points Guy, a consumer advice guide for airline travelers. “What we’re seeing is a drumbeat of delays and cancellations. It’s already busy out there and it’s expected to get busier in the summer. The airlines, airports, hotels and car rental companies are not staffed for that demand. I do think you’re going to see more meltdowns.”
Labor unions representing airline workers assert the nation’s carriers are still falling short of seamlessly serving a public eager to return to the skies after being cooped up by the COVID-19 pandemic. Here in Florida, the problem has been particularly acute during major holiday weekends.
Last Wednesday, the head of the Air Line Pilots Association, which represents 64,000 cockpit crew members in the U.S. and Canada, ripped the airlines for accepting billions of dollars in federal government aid to keep their networks aloft, only to fall short when consumer demand rebounded.
“Over the last three years, the U.S. government, American taxpayers, airline labor, and company managements have risen to the challenge of the pandemic,” Joe Depete, ALPA president, told a meeting of the union’s executive board in Washington. “After securing federal aid on a scale no other industry received, some airlines’ failure to plan for recovery threatens to cost our industry the comeback.”
As for the forthcoming weekend traffic, an American Airlines spokeswoman from Miami said the airline expects to average more than 5,700 departures system-wide between May 26 and 30.
In an email, Southwest Airlines said that in a bid to buttress reliability during the spring and summer, the airline increased its system headcount by approximately 3,300 in first quarter of this year after factoring in…