US: Holiday weekend sees massive amount of flight cancellations

Thousands of flights wound up cancelled and delayed during the Juneteenth and Father’s Day holiday weekend, which included the busiest air travel day of the year on Friday, according to the TSA. More than 2.4m people traveled through TSA checkpoints on Friday, according to the agency. The same day, airlines had cancelled more than 1,100 flights by early afternoon, following more than 1,700 cancellations on Thursday, according to the Associated Press. More than 6,300 flights were delayed within, into or leaving the US on Saturday, and 859 flights were cancelled, according to the flight tracking platform FlightAware. As of Sunday morning, more than 1,000 flights within, into or leaving the US had been delayed and more than 700 flights had been cancelled, according to FlightAware. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, and Chicago O’Hare International Airport had the most delays and cancellations on Sunday. Some 2,700 flights were cancelled over Memorial Day weekend. Faced with staffing shortages, and a pilot shortage in particular, many airlines have already cancelled thousands of flights for the summer season, including Southwest Airlines, which cut nearly 20,000 summer flights. Delta is cancelling 100 daily departures from destinations in the US and Latin America, affecting travel from July 1 to August 7. The airline company published an open letter to customers on Thursday acknowledging both the labor shortage and customers’ frustrations with cancelled and delayed flights.<br/>