Holiday weekend sees large number of flight delays and cancellations

By Julianne McShane —

Thousands of flights were canceled and delayed over the Juneteenth and Father's Day holiday weekend, which included the busiest day of air traffic of the year on Friday, according to the Transportation Security Administration. .

More than 2.4 million people passed through TSA checkpoints on Friday, according to the agency.

That same day, airlines had canceled more than 1,100 flights by early afternoon, after more than 1,700 cancellations on Thursday, according to The Associated Press.

On Saturday, more than 6,400 domestic or inbound and outbound flights in the United States were delayed, and 860 flights were cancelled, according to flight tracking platform FlightAware.

As of Sunday morning,

according to FlightAware.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and Chicago's O'Hare International Airport suffered the most delays and cancellations on Sunday.

Hundreds of flights canceled for the second day in a row.

The shortage of pilots is one of the reasons

June 17, 202202:02

Some 2,700 flights were canceled during Memorial Weekend.

Faced with a shortage of staff, and pilots in particular, many airlines have already canceled thousands of flights for the summer season, including Southwest Airlines, which cut nearly 20,000 summer flights, according to a report by the Dallas Morning News.

Delta is canceling 100 daily departures from destinations in the United States and Latin America, which will affect travel from July 1 to August 7.

The airline released an open letter to customers on Thursday acknowledging both labor shortages and customer frustration over canceled and delayed flights.

Pilot shortage puts hundreds of flights at risk for July 4 holiday

June 17, 202202:10

The travel disruptions over the weekend of June 19 followed a meeting Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had with airline CEOs late Thursday to discuss how to improve their operations.

[Delta pilots write an open letter to their customers as the industry tries to keep up with traveler demand]

In an interview with the AP on Saturday, Buttigieg said his own flight from Washington to New York had been canceled Friday, prompting him to drive instead, and that he was pressing airline leaders to make sure that they could meet their scheduled flights for the summer with the staff they have.

Buttigieg added that the Department of Transportation could take action against airlines, but cautioned that he wanted to wait to see how air travel played out over the Fourth of July weekend and the rest of the summer season.