The FlightAware tracking service showed that about 2,200 flights worldwide were canceled on Monday evening. Only 380 of these cancellations were to, from, or within the United States, accounting for less than 2% of all scheduled flights in the United States.
That’s down from 2,700 global cancellations on Sunday. The situation improved even more for American flights, as it fell from more than 800 flights canceled on Sunday. From Thursday to Sunday, more than 5,000 flights to the United States were canceled by airlines, or about 5% of their schedule.
With Juneteenth as a federal holiday on Monday and Father’s Day on Sunday, traffic was heavy at airports over the weekend.
The 2.4 million passengers screened by the TSA at U.S. airports on Friday were the highest on a day so far this year, 17% more than on the Friday before Father’s Day last year. While this traffic is still 12% below 2019 levels, it is more than four times the number of travelers before the 2020 Father’s Day weekend.
Airlines have been limited in the number of flights they can schedule due to staff shortages. Major U.S. airlines offered purchases and early retirement packages to reduce staffing levels during the first year of the pandemic, when demand for air travel fell. They have had trouble getting these staff back to pre-pandemic levels, in part because it takes time to train and qualify new employees for pilot, flight attendant and mechanic positions. There are 13% fewer domestic flights available in June compared to June 2019, according to aviation analysis firm Cirium.
Tight staffing and scheduling have limited the ability of airlines to recover from weather events, such as those that occurred across the country last week. There have been similar increases in flight cancellations recently during other holiday travel periods, including Memorial Day weekend and end-of-year vacation. The limited number of flights and the strong demand from passengers have caused fares to rise. According to Cowen’s price analysis of the three largest airlines in the country – American, United and Delta – leisure rates have risen by 42% compared to a year ago for the week ended June 6. The consumer price index, the government’s main measure of inflation, estimates that global tariffs rose 37.8% in May compared to a year ago, and 21.7% compared to May 2019, before the pandemic.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly indicated the number of global flight cancellations per Sunday. They were 2,700.