Pilot shortage prompts rare flight cancellations at Delta over Thanksgiving break

Delta Air Lines has canceled hundreds of flights over the Thanksgiving break as it grapples with staffing shortages during the busiest travel week since the coronavirus pandemic began.

While demand remains less than half of last year’s levels because of the pandemic, Transportation Security Administration airport screenings rose above 1 million on Sunday and Wednesday, the highest in more than eight months.

On Thursday, Delta canceled about 300 flights, roughly 20% of its schedule and around 160 flights, or around 9% of Friday’s schedule.

“A number of factors have pressured our ability to timely staff several dozen scheduled flights,” Delta said Friday in a statement. “We apologize to our customers for any inconvenience these flight cancellations have caused.”

The airline expects operations to return to normal over the weekend and said most customers whose flights were canceled were rebooked on flights the same day.

The operational problems, reported earlier by the View from the Wing blog, come after hundreds of pilots took early retirement packages. And earlier this week pilots approved a deal to accept partial pay not to fly that would avoid more than 1,700 furloughs until 2022.

Cuts to pilot ranks can create cascading problems because they need to be trained and also stay current on certain aircraft and cannot easily switch from one to another.

American Airlines, which furloughed close to 8,000 flight attendants last month, is also dealing with staffing issues this week, and offered extra pay to encourage cabin crews to sign up for more trips, according to their union, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants.

Only two flights were canceled as a result, according to a company spokesman. “We are grateful to all of our team members who are working this week and this weekend to get our customers where they need to go over the Thanksgiving holiday,” the airline said in a statement.