The fallout continues for travelers across the area following the announcement by American Airlines that up to 80 flights a day will be canceled through July, mainly due to a pilot shortage.
>>RELATED: American Airlines cancels hundreds of flights through mid-July
Issues facing travelers now originated in March when American started to see an increase in demand for travel, according to area aviation analyst Jay Ratliff. In March, the country’s largest airliner decided to bring all their planes back in service by the end of May that were previously parked due to the pandemic and low demand, Ratliff said.
“They could see the swell of the advanced bookings as far as summer travel and they wanted to have, if you will, all hands on deck,” Ratliff told News Center 7′s John Bedell Wednesday.
“The problem was, and the airline’s pilot union for American pointed this out quickly saying, ‘wait a minute, we have a lot of furloughed pilots that are going to have to go through brief simulator training to get qualified’, checked out is the word we use, so they can resume service on the flight deck.”
>>RELATED: Hundreds of American Airlines flights cancelled; staffing, other issues blamed
So as the pilots started their training it created a bottleneck with flights booked for American customers, but not enough pilots “checked out” to fly.
“Now, they’re cancelling 50 to 80 flights a day. And the reason that they’re doing that is they simply do not have enough pilots at this point in time for all the aircraft that they have ready to go,” Ratliff said.
But not all flights on the airliner are equally impacted with most of the cancellations involving the Boeing 737 aircraft, according to Ratliff.
“So if you have an upcoming reservation over the next three to four weeks on American, and you’re flying a regional jet, you have no worries at all. If you’re flying a 737, just make sure that you have within the passenger name record so American can get a hold of you in the event that there’s any change for your upcoming reservation,” he said.
But as the flights are being cancelled, Ratliff says American has done a good job notifying passengers in advance that their flight is one on the cancellation list.
“Fortunately, American’s doing a pretty good job of trying to get a hold of everybody well in advance, taking care of the cancellations long before any of us get to the airport which is certainly good news. But still, it’s a headache for some people who have not flown in a couple of years. You’re getting ready to fly only to find out, your flight’s not gonna go,” he said.
In a statement to CBS News, an American Airlines spokesperson called the flight cancellations was done to “build in additional resilience and certainty” to its flight schedule. Ratliff says that’s just the airliner saying they messed up.
“’We screwed up by not getting our pilots trained soon enough.’ I mean that’s kind of the bottom line to it,” he said.
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