As the demand for ‘retaliatory travel’, which was suppressed by Corona 19, is in full swing, there is a global air turmoil. Online media outlets such as Axios and Bloomberg reported that flight cancellations or delays were caused by the imbalance between supply and demand.
According to travel application Hopper, U.S. air passengers increased by 50% in June this year compared to the same period last year. Even compared to the same period in 2019, before the COVID-19 epidemic, it increased by 25%.
The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) also announced that on the 17th of this month, ahead of June Teens Day, more than 2 million passengers passed through the airport. This is an increase of 100,000 people compared to the previous peak travel season, Memorial Day, TSA explained.
The surge in tourism demand is also attributed to the fact that major tourist destinations, such as Europe and Australia, lifted COVID-19 quarantine regulations and reopened borders. However, the supply of airlines and airports is far from meeting the explosive demand.
In the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak, the U.S. airline industry predicted that it would take a significant amount of time for travel demand to recover, so it implemented large-scale staff cuts, such as encouraging senior pilots and flight attendants to retire early. Airports and others have also made large-scale workforce cuts over the past two years to cut costs.
In a situation where most of the workers were laid off due to the COVID-19 crisis, there is not enough manpower to normalize it to the pre-pandemic level. Airlines and airports have rushed to secure manpower, but it is not easy to fill the manpower vacancy in a short period of time because many employees have full-time jobs in other occupations. The large-scale restructuring that was carried out to cut costs has come back as a boomerang.
Regional airlines Piedmond and Envoy are focusing their efforts on securing manpower, including a temporary 50% increase in wages for pilots until August 2024. American Airlines has promised to raise the wages of 14,000 pilots on major routes. Alaska Airlines and United Airlines are also funding aspiring pilots after opening flight training schools earlier this year.
However, the shortage of manpower is still not resolved, and airlines are canceling flights even though it is an opportunity to earn money. Last weekend, thousands of flights were canceled across the country, including Los Angeles, again every day.
CNN reported on the 17th that 9,000 flights were canceled in the United States due to shortages and other reasons. Delta Air Lines canceled 248 flights on the 19th alone, while United Airlines and American Airlines also canceled 90 and 96, respectively. On the 20th, more than 5,000 flights were canceled nationwide.
The industry predicted that the job shortage could exceed next year. United Airlines Chief Executive Scott Kirby said: “The pilot shortage is a real problem, and most airlines have a shortage of pilots, so you won’t know how many flights they will be able to offer,” said United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby. did.
“It will take up to a year to address the manpower shortage,” Malaysia Airlines chief executive Isam Ismail also told Bloomberg.
Incumbent Delta Air Lines pilots said they flew more additional flights than 2018-2019 combined because of lack of staff. Although the airline is currently suffering from a manpower shortage, the recovered travel demand is expected to boost sales this year, Axios said.