Delta Air Lines calls off more than 100 flights due to staff shortages

Delta Air Lines offers excellent service and always on schedule but recently, it has to cancel over 100 flights citing staff shortages.

Why Delta had to call off flights

The company stated it had more than one million passengers in the last few days and while this is a great improvement since the COVID-19 pandemic started last year, it also created some issues. This is because Delta Air Lines can’t accommodate the number of passengers as the travel industry slowly starts to pick up again.

With the surge of travelers over the Easter holidays, the airline doesn’t have enough pilots to fly everyone to their destination. Delta Air Lines tried to minimize the flight cancellations by opening the middle seats to carry more people. Due to the pandemic, the seat blocking policy was implemented and this was temporarily suspended because of the situation.

“We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience, and the majority have been rebooked for the same travel day,” The San Diego Union-Tribune quoted the airline as saying in a statement last weekend.

In any case, the blocking policy was supposed to be in place until May. The plan is to open the middle seats by the time when more people are vaccinated against coronavirus. It was clarified that the middle seats were only unblocked for Sunday and Monday flights (April 4 and 5) and the policy will continue to be in effect.

“Delta teams have been working through various factors, including staffing, large numbers of employee vaccinations and pilots returning to active status,” the airline explained.

The travel industry is recovering

Air travel in the U.S. is recovering and this was evident with Delta Air Line’s reported one million passengers in the last few days. Other airlines are also getting busier and in fact, United Airlines has also resumed its hiring of pilots and staff.

As for Delta, it is eager to increase its revenue as fast as possible and the company may realize this soon with how things are going. It may also ask its workers to return soon since many have left while others took an unpaid leave when the pandemic dampened the business last year, as per Bloomberg.