Delta is cutting about 100 flights a day from July 1 through Aug. 7, becoming the latest carrier to scale back capacity in hopes of avoiding flight disruptions for thousands of travelers. The summer flight reductions represent about 2% of Delta’s scheduled departures. Other carriers including JetBlue and Spirit have also trimmed schedules to give their operations more wiggle room to handle challenges like bad weather and staffing shortages. “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’s chief customer experience officer, Allison Ausband, wrote in a note on the airline’s website Thursday. Delta also asked pilots to pick up open shifts during a busy Memorial Day weekend, when it expects to fly 2.5m people, up 25% from last year. Fewer seats mean more pricing power for airlines as travelers return to the skies after more than two years of the Covid pandemic.<br/>
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KLM capped the sale of flights from its Amsterdam Schiphol hub in order to create spare capacity for customers who miss their booked departure amid an acute shortage of airport security staff. The restrictions, which don’t apply to premium bookings, will be in place through Sunday, a spokeswoman for the unit of Air France-KLM said in an email Thursday. People holding tickets can also retime their trip for a later date. Royal Schiphol Group NV, which operates the hub, said separately that it had devised an action plan that includes recruiting more staff and optimizing passenger flows to help reduce waits that have extended to several hours. KLM has canceled hundreds of flights in recent weeks, with the lack of security personnel and cleaners compounded by a labor dispute at the airport. The Dutch disruption is symptomatic of a wider European crunch as airports and airlines that cut back during the pandemic seek thousands of workers to cope with a surge in demand unleashed by the lifting of travel curbs.<br/>