Hundreds of flights around the world were canceled on Sunday at noon, adding to the growing number of flights canceled during Memorial Day holiday weekend in the United States.
More than 1,260 flights had been canceled by 2:30 pm EDT on Sunday, according to the FlightAware flight tracking website. That followed after more than 2,300 cancellations on Friday and another 1,500 on Saturday.
More than 350 of Sunday’s cancellations involved planes scheduled to fly to or from U.S. cities.
Delta Air Lines canceled most flights among major U.S. airlines, with more than 250 flights, or 9 percent of its operations, eliminated on Saturday. More than 140 Delta flights were canceled Sunday at noon, according to FlightAware.
Saturday’s cancellations were due to bad weather and “air traffic control actions,” Atlanta-based Delta said in an email to The Associated Press, noting that it was trying to cancel flights at least 24 hours before Memorial Day weekend.
Delta announced on its website on Thursday that from July 1 to August 7, it would reduce service by about 100 daily departures, mainly to parts of the United States and Latin America that Delta serves frequently.
“More than at any time in our history, the various factors that currently affect our operation: the climate and air traffic control, the staffing of vendors, the increase in COVID case rates that contribute to unscheduled absences are higher than expected in some working groups) are leading to an operation that does not consistently meet Delta client Allison Ausband in a post.
Airlines and tourist destinations are expecting large crowds this summer as travel restrictions are eased and pandemic fatigue outweighs the lingering fear of contracting COVID-19 while traveling.
Many forecasters believe that the number of passengers will equal or even exceed pre-pandemic levels. However, airlines have thousands fewer employees than in 2019, and this has sometimes contributed to widespread flight cancellations.
People who are only now booking travel for the summer are experiencing the shock of the sticker.
Domestic airline fares for the summer exceed $ 400 on average for a round trip, 24 percent more than this time in 2019, before the pandemic, and 45 percent more than a year ago, according to travel data firm Hopper.
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