Several airlines are struggling to keep up with travel demand, prompting cancellations and widespread travel disruptions for thousands of travelers.
Spirit Airlines is the biggest offender. The budget carrier cancelled over 1,700 flights this week—on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, the airline cancelled more than half of its flights each day. Oof. According to WLRN Miami, Spirit is expected to cancel even more flights into next week. 🤦♀️
But Spirit wasn’t the only offender. American Airlines also called off hundreds of flights on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. However, to be fair, the cancellations represented a far smaller percentage of American’s flights. The company cited storms at its Dallas hub for delays.
Travel is making a comeback, which has recovering airlines short-staffed and stressed. According to the TSA’s passenger throughput page, the TSA screened 2,063,720 on Aug. 5. That’s a 23.7% decrease over the comparable period in 2019, but more than double the throughput observed in 2020.