• Delta A350
    Delta Air Lines
    IATA/ICAO Code:
    DL/DAL
    Airline Type:
    Full Service Carrier
    Hub(s):
    Boston Logan International Airport, Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Los Angeles International Airport, Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, New York JFK Airport, LaGuardia Airport, Salt Lake City International Airport, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport
    Year Founded:
    1929
    Alliance:
    SkyTeam
    CEO:
    Ed Bastian
    Country:
    United States

Delta Air Lines is trimming hundreds of flights through August to improve operational reliability amid soaring travel demand and understaffing. These cancelations could impact the summer plans of thousands of travelers across the United States. Let’s investigate further.

Cutting 100 flights a day

On Thursday, Delta announced that it will reduce about 100 flights a day between July 1 and August 7. The airline will take this measure in order to “build additional resilience in our system and improve operational reliability for our customers and employees.”

In an email sent to its employees, Delta said it expects a record holiday travel weekend. Still, several operational challenges force the carrier to “relieve pressure by proactively thinning the schedule over Memorial Day and through the balance of June.” Delta forecasts it will carry nearly 2.5 million passengers this Memorial Day weekend.

Delta has pledged to communicate to impacted employees and customers proactively to minimize close-in rebooking pressure. The flights affected will mostly be in the US and Latin America.

In April, Delta shared actions to improve its resiliency, and many of these initiatives (including, for instance, depeaking the Atlanta hub daily schedule) will take effect within the next few days.

GettyImages-1240092784
Delta will cut around 100 flights per day this summer season. Photo: Getty Images.

The impact among other carriers

Delta and other airlines are facing a challenging environment despite the extreme demand to fly in the United States (after a couple of years of recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic).

Delta signaled various factors currently impacting its operation - from weather and air traffic control, and vendor staffing to higher-than-planned unscheduled absences in some workgroups. The Atlanta-based airline is presently hiring several hundred new frontline employees weekly.

Discover more aviation news here.

Other airlines are also cutting flights ahead of the summer season. JetBlue said last month it was reducing its planned summer schedule by more than 10%. Alaska Airlines is reducing about 12% of its flights through June. American and Southwest have announced a reduction in the capacity of six and five percent, respectively.

Nonetheless, one of the main reasons impacting the schedules of US carriers is the pilot shortage in the country.

Pilots in flight simulator
North America will need the most pilots of any region. Photo: Getty Images.

Pilot shortage

When pilot resources become limited, the impact on the operation is more significant, said Delta in the memo. That’s because each pilot’s training and qualifications restrict them to a single seat on a specific fleet.

Delta said many pilots are currently stepping in to fly overtime. They are making “an effort to offset these challenges.” Nonetheless, it is not enough.

In 2021, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued 4,928 Airline Transport Pilot certificates, less than half the estimated number of pilots that the industry is looking to hire in 2022.

To address this issue, US carriers have taken several initiatives. In January, Delta announced it would end the requirement for pilots to have a four-year degree.

United Airlines recently reached an agreement on a new contract with its pilot’s labor union.

Republic Airways is looking to reduce the pilot training requirements and has asked the FAA for permission to hire pilots when they reach 750 flight hours instead of the required 1,500 hours.

How long do you expect these seasonal cuts will remain? Let us know in the comments below.