American Airlines cancels July flights due to labor shortage

American Airlines has pulled out hundreds of flights that were scheduled until July. It was said that the demand for travel has been increasing as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to subside in the U.S., but since the company is experiencing a labor shortage, it was forced to cancel flights to maintain good service.

The struggle to employ more employees

It was said that the cancellation affected 120 flights until July, and going forward, American Airlines is expecting 50 to 80 flight cancellations per day. Lack of employees played a big part in this as almost all companies in the country are struggling to find and hire new workers as the economy is attempting to get back to its pre-pandemic normal level.

"The first few weeks of June have brought unprecedented weather to our largest hubs, heavily impacting our operation and causing delays, canceled flights and disruptions to crew member schedules and our customers' plans," American Airlines' spokesperson, Shannon Gilson, told CNN. "That, combined with the labor shortages some of our vendors are contending with and the incredibly quick ramp up of customer demand has led us to build in additional resilience and certainty to our operation by adjusting a fraction of our scheduled flying through mid-July."

For the change in schedules and cancellations, customers who have reserved or booked their flights through July 15 have already been notified to give them time to adjust travel dates and book another date before their travel. Gibson added that although Dallas-Forthworth will be affected the most, cancellations will be distributed throughout its system to lessen the impact in one area.

Air travel picks up as more people are getting their COVID-19 vaccine

Reuters reported that American Airlines will cancel about one percent of its flights for the first half of July as it is an inevitable move. There are not enough employees to serve a huge number of passengers and in an effort to maintain its good service it was better to postpone some flights. This may keep happening during the summer when an influx of travel bookings is possible.

An increase in travel after people started getting vaccines was recorded, and the lifting of restrictions also contributed to the surge. Based on the date from the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, almost 50 million passengers were registered in May, which is 19% more compared to April. For this month, so far, the TSA has listed around 35 million air passengers.