Fall Air Travel: What to Expect This Labor Day and Beyond

(CNN) — Summer air travel is trying to say the least. Pleasant, many travelers say.

According to data from flight tracking site FlylyAware, about 55,000 flights were canceled in the US on the Friday before Memorial Day, and nearly a quarter of US flights were delayed this summer.

Kathleen Bangs, a former airline pilot and spokeswoman for FlalaAware, said the “huge problem with labor shortages” has created problems for air travel this season and into 2022.

Bangs is keen to give the airlines the benefit of the doubt as they look to ramp up their flight schedules ahead of the pandemic in 2022 due to manpower challenges.

“I think they really thought they would have enough workers coming back and hiring enough new ones to meet the demand, but as we’ve all seen, they didn’t,” Bangs said.

Weather and air traffic control personnel issues have added to the summer disruptions.

But some industry experts are cautiously optimistic about air travel this Labor Day holiday weekend, given forecasts for a soft fall travel season.

According to travel app Hopper, 12.6 million passengers are scheduled to fly out of US airports over the holiday weekend. Thursday and Friday will be the busiest days, Hopper predicts. Mondays are busy as commuters head home.

Hope for Labor Day weekend

Scott Keyes, founder of Scott’s Cheap Flights, a flight deals and travel tips company, told CNN Travel recently that early summer travelers expect fewer air travel disruptions than they saw over Memorial Day weekend.

“Looking back over the summer, you had two big holiday travel periods. You had Memorial Day when air travel went horribly wrong. There were extensive delays and cancellations that turned travel into a nightmare for many people. … and then the Fourth of July weekend, which had minimal travel disruption. You had Sunday,” Keyes said.

He predicts that Labor Day weekend will be closer to the Fourth of July.

The reason for this, I think, is that there will be fewer overall passengers on Labor Day than on Memorial Day. “With fewer travelers, the pressure on the system is reduced.”

And lower chances of a domino effect if the weather or staffing levels are less than ideal. As of 7 a.m. ET, nearly 500 flights were delayed in the U.S., both inbound and outbound, according to FlyAware. This summer, thousands of delays per day are the norm.

A ‘better’ trip to fall

Bangs said airlines have reduced their winter schedules by about 15%, which is one of the main reasons why the number of delays and cancellations is not higher.

At this point in summer 2019, there were more than 50,000 flight cancellations — or about 1.7% of all flights. About 18% of flights were delayed that summer. This summer, those figures are about 55,000 canceled — or about 2.2% of flights, with about 23% delayed.

Deeper schedule cuts are in play for the fall, plus demand typically drops when kids go back to school, Bangs said.

“Travel should be good between September and October, when demand will slow down and there may not be the same level of stress on heavy airline schedules that we saw in the summer,” Bangs said.

And when it comes to price, there’s a reason people are excited right now.

And it’s worth tracking down and throwing in attractive holiday fare. “Air fares will increase rapidly as we head into Thanksgiving and Christmas,” said Hayley Berg, Hopper’s lead economist.

Bangs have been discounted by a third for many urban couples throughout September and October.

“With reduced seating capacity in the fall, people thinking of traveling in September and October and into early November should buy those tickets now,” she said.

Bangs expects holiday fares to drop until September and possibly even October before the release.

What about holiday travel later this year?

Bangs said the airlines will only be fully prepared for the 2022 Thanksgiving and Christmas season when they “restore their staffing levels to or above 2019 levels.”

She also said she expects the spread of Covid variants and seasonal viruses such as the flu to affect staff absenteeism this fall, citing the 2021 Christmas season and January as the hardest hit for airlines.

“With adjusted backlogs and increased staffing, the airlines are in a better position for the 2021 Thanksgiving and holiday travel season than last year,” Bangs said.

Of course, the weather is a wild card. Last Thanksgiving went off without a hitch “in part because the weather was so cooperative across the 48 states.”

Shaping the vision of air travel

Solving the US air travel crisis is a work in progress.

“I understand you’ll never have zero cancellations. There’s always going to be a storm somewhere, a surprise somewhere, an issue somewhere,” US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg recently told CNN’s Kate Bolduan.

But we need a more robust system. And we expect airlines that collect revenue from ticket sales to be ready to service the tickets they sell.

The U.S. pilot shortage isn’t going away anytime soon, Bangs said.

“In the fall, when the demand decreases, the weather improves, and there are fewer flights in general, it may seem like less of a problem. But new pilots can only be created over a longer timeline,” she said.

And while it’s less visible to the public, mechanics and technicians are also in short supply, Bangs said.

Buttigieg, the transportation secretary, acknowledged that the Federal Aviation Administration also has staffing issues to contend with, even though it still puts the majority of air travel disruptions on the airlines.

“We’ve seen air traffic control manpower challenges, particularly in the New York area and Florida airspace — largely because of the hole the pandemic has created in the training pipeline,” he said.

More strategies to come

While we hope and expect smooth travels, here are some tips for navigating the skies now and in the coming weeks and months.

Take the earliest possible flight: “The earlier you schedule your flight, the more likely it will go smoothly because … the weather will be better in the morning than in the afternoon,” Keyes said. “But you don’t run the risk of a domino-effect cancellation.”

Impersonate savvy business travelers. “They’ve got TSA pre-check. They’ve downloaded the airline app to their phone,” Bangs said. The FlylyAware app helps remind travelers of flight changes.

Continuously. Bangs and Keyes suggest booking nonstop, connecting flights whenever possible. It might be worth the extra cost if there is one.

Do not check a bag. “If your flight is delayed or you have to reschedule or if you miss a connection, it’s much easier to not find your bag in the belly of the plane,” Keyes said.

Ask all you can find: The airlines’ revised policies (see links above) aim to give you what you need if your flight is disrupted.

You can also request other accommodations, such as a free flight voucher or miles deposited into your frequent flyer account, Bangs said.

“See what you can get” and “Always be humble.”

Top Image: Travelers 2018 Travelers line up to enter a security checkpoint at Newark Liberty International Airport on July 1, 2022. (Gina Moon/Getty Images)