US airlines plot a course away from another costly summer of chaos

The past two summers saw air travel nightmares across the US as airlines struggled to restore operations brutally curtailed by a global pandemic. With much to prove, industry executives are promising that this time will be different. A quarter of US flights were cancelled or delayed last summer, leaving travellers fuming in airports across the country. The chaos has prompted the White House and some legislators to call for tighter regulation to minimise fees and disruptions. As the big US airlines prepare for peak season, American Airlines COO David Seymour told the Financial Times the carrier had been working since autumn to build “resilience” into its summer schedule to be ready for commercial flying’s unexpected challenges. After determining how many people it could reasonably expect to hire and train, he said, “we built a schedule that we knew we could fly”. Delta Air Lines has trimmed its flight plans by 2% to preserve operational reliability, while United Airlines’ head of operations said the company had “already done that” and was “ahead of the curve”. All three carriers have cut some New York flights because there are too few air traffic controllers to manage the region’s congested airspace. “The stakes are always high in the summer,” Seymour said. “People want to get back to travel, and they don’t want to have another experience [like] they had last summer.” Summer tests operations at US airlines because it combines higher volumes of flights and passengers with the possibility of thunderstorms, wildfires, hurricanes and extreme heat. The season, said United COO Torbjorn “Toby” Enqvist, “is our Super Bowl”. The tough conditions mean airlines need slack in the system to recover when bad weather strikes. That slack, whether it takes the form of extra crew on standby, emptier planes or longer times to complete a flight, drives up costs, either leading to higher fares or hurting profits. Airlines must balance the need to operate smoothly against the need to cut costs, said Citi analyst Stephen Trent. The risk lies in cutting too far.<br/>