Flight canceled? Pete Buttigieg asks airlines to step up their game: NPR

Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg April 28 in Washington, DC.

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Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg April 28 in Washington, DC.

Win McNamee / Getty Images

If you’re among the travelers who have had the flight delayed or canceled in recent weeks, Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg knows your pain, because his own flight scheduled for Friday was canceled.

He received a warning on the phone on Friday morning about the flight, after meeting practically with the country’s airlines chiefs about their chronic operational problems on Thursday night.

“I thought, this is nice on the nose,” Buttigieg told NPR. “It illustrates what millions of passengers are worried about right now.”

Buttigieg’s was one of around 1,400 US flights canceled on Friday, according to FlightAware. This is in addition to more than 1700 departures that were canceled on Thursday.

Airlines have struggled to meet a huge increase in demand for flights this summer. Lack of manning, especially among pilots, has given many airlines little leeway when problems arise, especially bad weather.

But in the meeting with the airline’s CEO, Buttigieg says he told them that they “must make sure that their schedules first and foremost reflect the realities of some of the manning problems they have encountered.”

“These airlines have received a lot of public support for trying to keep the system resilient,” Buttigieg told NPR, citing $ 54 billion in pandemic aid. “And now we look to them to make sure their operations are reliable, and most importantly that when there’s a disruption or delay … they get someone on the phone and get that customer service to help you through it.”

Buttigieg said he pressured the airline’s executives to detail what action they were taking to ensure operations were smoothly underway during the busy Fourth of July holiday.

“I received a lot of assurances about the steps they are taking, and I know that this is being taken very seriously when it comes to all the measures the airlines can take,” Buttigieg said. “On the other hand, I’m in a car right now instead of on a plane, because we were unable to get a plane as planned, so these disruptions continue to be a concern.”