Thousands of flights are canceled as the busy summer travel season heats up
Airlines are struggling to recover after canceling more than 2,800 flights since Thursday, when severe weather pushed through the northeast.
The majority of the cancellations and delays occurred on Thursday when the storms passed. The disturbances then bled out on Friday while carriers worked to recover from the travel mess.
Airports that experienced the most cancellations were the airports in the New York City area, Charlotte Douglas International Airport and Boston Logan International Airport, according to the flight tracking site FlightAware.
In this archive image on May 27, 2022, travelers are waiting in check-in queues at the Tom Bradley International Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles.
Caroline Brehman / EPA via Shutterstock, FIL
Airline executives met with Department of Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Thursday to discuss how to prevent extensive cancellations and delays ahead of the July 4 holiday.
Buttigieg pressured the airlines over their ability to reliably operate holiday flights and asked them to improve the customer experience, a source familiar with the meeting told ABC News.
The secretary also said that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will continue to keep air traffic steady and on track after criticism from some industry groups that the FAA’s ground stops and delays caused by weather and manning problems resulted in many delays over Memorial Day Weekend.
The FAA says it is working to hire more air traffic controllers for its facilities, as they have had to reduce air traffic in some of the busiest airspace due to daily shortages.
