Will flight delays, cancellations affect Thanksgiving, Christmas travel?

The long lines, canceled flights, staff shortages and customer service nightmares that have plagued the airline over the past year may be easing, but they aren’t going away anytime soon.

U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told the Deseret News on Friday that he expects the current issue to continue through Thanksgiving and Christmas.

“It will take some time for the pilot workforce to return to pre-Covid levels,” he said in an interview, adding that in some cases demand is higher now than before the outbreak.

“I don’t think this will be solved overnight,” Buttigieg said.

Buttigieg spoke with the Deseret News on Friday during a stop in Utah, where he recently announced new funding for infrastructure projects with Gov. Spencer Cox as part of a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package. Buttigieg also met with Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson, local leaders and firefighters at the Migration Canyon Fire Station about wildfire prevention.

And while transportation resilience is the theme of the day, he says his department is still in dialogue with the airline industry on a daily basis.

“I talk to them often. “What we have seen is encouraging, but there is still a lot to do,” he said.

Cancellation rates aren’t as high as they were in the spring and early summer, hovering around 3% or 4% — they’re now down to 2%, which is starting to look “normal,” Buttigieg said.

In addition, some airlines have made efforts to improve pilot pay by allocating more resources to customer service and addressing inconsistent fares and refunds. Some airlines are changing their flight schedules to “fit the realities of their workforce.”

Laura Seitz, Deseret News

“We’ve certainly seen improvements since the unacceptable situations around Memorial Day weekend,” Buttigieg said.

But the problems persist — more than 12,000 flights in the US were delayed over the Fourth of July weekend and more than 1,000 were canceled. London’s Heathrow Airport and Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport both recently cut passenger capacity, forcing airlines to cancel flights. German airline Lufthansa canceled almost all of its flights to Frankfurt and Munich this week, leaving thousands of passengers stranded.

And as of Friday afternoon, there were nearly 1,600 delayed flights and 278 canceled flights across the U.S., according to Flight Information.

There are several reasons – many airlines blame airports and governments for congested airspace and air traffic control staffing issues. Bad weather has also canceled several flights this year. Across the board, both airlines and airports are facing staff shortages.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, recently introduced a bill that would raise the mandatory retirement age for pilots from 65 to 67 to keep more people on the job.

Buttigieg is not sold on this approach.

“I’m not comfortable with anything that could have a safety impact,” he said.

Buttigieg said some solutions could come from the department — others, especially anything related to security, would require an act of Congress.

As for the Department of Transportation’s pullbacks, Buttigieg pointed to the Consumer Protection Program, which is currently investigating several complaints about airlines not issuing refunds, and said some will soon take enforcement action.

Cooperation to manage the national airspace is another interesting issue, the minister said. It’s about solving bottlenecks that are often delayed or canceled.

The department is also reviewing the definition of unfair and deceptive practices “to make sure it gives us the room to do what we need to do,” Buttigieg said.