Ahead of the July 4th holiday weekend, flight delays and cancellations have impacted thousands across the country. Cheddar News checked in from New York's LaGuardia Airport for more.

<div class="block">Ahead of the July 4th holiday weekend, flight delays and cancellations have impacted thousands across the country. Cheddar News checked in from New York&#39;s LaGuardia Airport for more.</div>

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How Airlines Are Responding to Delays, Cancellations Ahead of Holiday Weekend

Ahead of the holiday weekend, airline delays and cancellations have inconvenienced thousands of travelers. Our husbands included Baker for the latest. We're joined by Michelle Castillo who is at laguardia Airport in my hometown of Queens, New York. Good morning, Michelle. Good morning. So yes, we're here at laguardia Airport as you pointed out, Hannah. And it's already picking up to be a busier travel day. I just stopped by the T A. It's still about 10 minutes to go through security at this point, which is about a standard time. But if you look around here at laguardia, we're here at the American Airlines terminal, you'll start to see that there's a lot of people, it's not as crowded as it could be, but there's definitely a lot of luggage, meaning that people are getting ready for a long weekend. And you know, with July 4th being on Tuesday, we're seeing a lot of travelers who are looking at going to further destinations because they have a little bit of time off. And this is the first time this year that we're really starting to see levels going really above pre pandemic air travel. So I think this is a good sign for everyone out there in the industry, but also not so great if you're one of those travelers because you're going to expect delays. Now, laguardia isn't typically one of the busiest airports at this time. You're looking at Denver, Atlanta, Houston, those airports face a lot more issues, but it does. But I think everyone overall is expecting to see more traffic, more foot traffic, especially today, which is going to be the busiest air traffic day according to several sources including the AAA. All right. So let's talk about how this July 4th weekend will compare to previous years. Are we expecting this one to be much more intense? Well, according to AAA, you're looking at 50.7 million Americans who are going to travel 50 miles or more and that is up from pre pandemic levels, meaning that we are ready to get out. Now, there's a couple of reasons behind that, even though things might be a little bit more expensive gas prices have gone down. So people who are looking to hit the road in their car, it's a little cheaper than it was in 2022. Now we're at laguardia. So of course, air travel, I want to talk about that. It's going to definitely be up this year, about 4.17 million Americans expected to travel via the skies this year. That's up double digits from 2022 and from pre pandemic levels up 6.6%. Now, as I mentioned earlier today is expected to be the busiest travel day. So if you're going to head to the airport, definitely build in that extra time, especially if you're in one of our other nation's airports. We're already starting to see a ton of cancellations. And according to tracking service flight where 2000 flights were delayed up to noon yesterday, 383 of them Michelle belong to United. How are airlines responding to these issues today? Well, you know, I took a look at the stats already. We're seeing just today alone, 16,500 flights north of that delayed already here. And most of those are international, about 1000 have been canceled, about another 1000 more have been delayed here in the US alone. Now, airlines are pointing the finger at everyone blaming air traffic controllers, the lack of that right now, especially CEO of United Scott Kirby. Now the FAA said they are working on the traffic controller problem. They plan to hire about 300 more people, but that's not going to alleviate the problem at least this year and it is definitely not going to alleviate the problem by this summer.