Airlines canceled more than 1,500 flights in the U.S. on Thursday, one of the worst days yet for travel as the peak summer vacation season heats up.
FILE - A Transportation Security Administration agent serves a traveler at a checkpoint in a sparsely populated Terminal B at LaGuardia Airport, Nov. 25, 2020, in the Queens borough of New York. Airlines are canceling more than 1,400 flights across the U.S., Thursday, June, 16, 2022, in one of the worst days yet in the summer travel season.
And they happened as airline CEOs held a virtual meeting with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg — a sign of the Biden administration's concern about the prospect of snarled airports and unhappy travelers this summer. Buttigieg also pushed airlines to examine whether they can handle the schedules that they have published, and to improve customer service, the person said.
Two Senate Democrats said this month that the holiday weekend performance “raises questions about airline decision-making.” Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Edward Markey of Massachusetts said delays and cancellations “are occurring so frequently that they are becoming an almost-expected part of travel.”The airlines blame bad weather and the Federal Aviation Administration, an arm of the Transportation Department that manages the nation’s airspace.