2022 flight cancellations have already surpassed final 12 months’s complete

The variety of flight cancellations over the past six months has already surpassed final 12 months’s totals, positioning 2022 to develop into one of many worst years on report.

Hundreds of flights have been canceled within the days main as much as the Fourth of July vacation weekend, with airways reporting 121,918 cancellations between Jan. 1 and the top of June — in comparison with 121,552 for all of 2021, in accordance with knowledge from FlightAware. A big portion of these was canceled over the past month, with extra flights being canceled in June 2022 than any June in earlier years.

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The numbers put 2022 on monitor to be one of many worst nonpandemic years on report for flight cancellations since 2019, which recorded 170,632 complete cancellations, in accordance with the information. It additionally places the 12 months on monitor to rival that of 2020 when 298,000 flights have been canceled amid the coronavirus pandemic and worldwide shutdowns. The one different 12 months on report to have surpassed the 200,000 threshold was 2001, when hundreds of flights have been grounded after the 9/11 assaults.

Airways are additionally being hit by a rise in flight delays, with roughly 20% of flights being delayed thus far in 2022 in comparison with simply 13.1% within the first half of 2021, knowledge present.

The disruption to air journey has been brought on by a myriad of things, together with shortages of pilots and air visitors controllers, climate issues, and airways scheduling flights past their capacities.

Understaffing and worker retention are a few of the largest issues dealing with the air journey business. Through the worst of the pandemic, flights grew to become nearly nonexistent, and airways hemorrhaged a whole bunch of hundreds of employees, a few of whom by no means returned.

Now that airways are working to rent and retain employees, some pilots are utilizing the leverage to demand higher pay, protections, and scheduling. Off-duty Delta Air Traces pilots at a number of airports protested on Thursday with calls for to renew contract negotiations that have been paused indefinitely throughout the pandemic.