Given that this long summer weekend also coincides with Father’s Day, that means there will be a lot of travel going on.
TSA officers said they screened about 2,438,784 people at airport security checkpoints nationwide on Friday, the highest checkpoint volume since November 28, the Sunday after Thanksgiving. That also was about 100,000 more travelers than the Friday before Memorial Day weekend.
“Welcome to the Juneteenth Holiday Weekend of travel!” wrote TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein on Twitter.
While Juneteenth became an official holiday last year, this is the first year that the US stock market and banks will close in its honor.
In all, more than 3,200 flights were canceled between Friday and Sunday, per FlightAware, including more than 850 flights on Saturday and more than 900 Sunday.
Delta Air Lines alone canceled at least 248 flights on Sunday. United Airlines canceled 90 flights, and American Airlines canceled 96 flights.
“A variety of factors continue to impact our operations, including challenges with air traffic control, weather and unscheduled absences in some work groups,” Delta said in a statement to CNN. “Canceling a flight is always our last resort, and we sincerely apologize to our customers for the inconvenience to their travel plans.”
CNN has reached out to United and American for a comment on the flight cancellations.
Delta said it will cancel 100 daily flights in the US and Latin America from July 1 to August 7. In an open letter to customers, Delta pilots wrote that the labor shortage has put them on pace to fly more overtime hours this year than in all of 2018 and 2019 combined.
“The pilot shortage for the industry is real, and most airlines are simply not going to be able to realize their capacity plans because there simply aren’t enough pilots, at least not for the next five-plus years,” United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said during the airline’s quarterly earnings call in April.
Some US senators are taking note. “While some flight cancellations are unavoidable, the sheer number of delays and cancellations this past weekend raises questions about airline decision-making,” wrote Senators Richard Blumenthal and Edward Markey in a letter to Buttigieg earlier this month.
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