David Slotnick, Senior Aviation Business Reporter at The Points Guy, joined Closing Bell to break down the factors that led to a chaotic weekend for airlines, with more than 5,000 flight cancellations amid widespread staffing shortages.

Closing Bell

More Than 19,000 U.S. Flights Disrupted Over Holiday Weekend as Staffing Shortages Mount

Welcome back to closing bell on cheddar news, Everyone, let's talk travel because staffing shortages and bad weather wreaking havoc on the airline industry during a busy holiday travel weekend, More than 19,000 flights were canceled or delayed from Thursday to Sunday and it couldn't have come at a worse time. This friday was the busiest day for air travels so far this year, with more than 2.4 million people passing through T. S. A. Checkpoints at U. S. Airports. Well, joining me now is David Slotnick, senior aviation business reporter at the points guy. That's a traveling news site, David. It's good to see you. So it seems like a few factors creating this perfect storm for airlines over the weekend. What happened? Yeah, so like you say, it really is a perfect storm and unfortunately we've seen a few of these perfect storms over the last year or so. Uh this weekend. What happened was um, well, first of all, there was bad weather late last week um that caused some issues thursday friday a little bit before, but then it was compounded by two things. One, it was the busiest travel day of the year. Um that was Friday and actually the second busiest travel day of the pandemic, more than 2.4 million people flew according to the T. S. A. Uh Combined with that, there's been this staffing shortage in the industry and it's just really continued to go on. Um It's been alleviated a little bit. Airlines are hiring air traffic control is hiring, but you know, as this is going on, travel numbers are climbing, so it's really been difficult for them to keep up. So, um, as that demand does continue to increase. David and now even more so with international flights, as the biden administration rolled back those testing requirements for international travelers, how our airlines going to handle this, staffing shortages, stealing issues. Some airlines trimming their schedules, but travelers clearly still apt to fly. Yeah, that's exactly right. You know, the airlines are cutting their schedules back. Delta, for instance, is cutting I think it was 100 flights a day from its schedule starting in july. Um they're going to continue hiring. You know, this is an ongoing process. They have pilots who are training being cleared to fly really every week. Uh same thing with people on the ground flight attendants. Um, just everybody throughout the entire system. Um, You know, on top of that, they are going to really just try and implement these lessons that they've learned over the last few meltdowns. But the issue is this is probably going to keep going on to some degree. Um at least through the end of the year. Just takes so long to hire and to get caught up like that. So what should travelers know if their flight is delayed or even canceled? How can travelers try to prepare and protect themselves against some of these changes. You know, the best thing you can do is just try and be your own advocate. You know, try and make your own alternative plans when you can um You know for example my flight on friday was delayed. I almost got stuck in a different city overnight. I wasn't sure what was gonna happen. The customer service lines were around the corner so I didn't think I'd get much help there. So you know I got ready to make my own hotel reservation for the night. Um You know I'm not sure if I would have gotten the money back. It depends on what would have happened if the flight was ultimately canceled. But it was just an option that I had that I could pull if something happened. So you know it's helpful for passengers to do that if you're traveling in the coming days in the coming weeks just make a habit of checking your reservation. Just open up the airport or airplane app on your phone. You know make sure that nothing's changed, drag it down to refresh it um and see if anything has a lot of the time you'll be rebooked automatically. That's a pretty seamless process. But sometimes it's not the best flight or maybe they put you on a different routing so you can always change that um On top of that if your flight is canceled or significantly delayed. You are always entitled to a refund. That's a D. O. T. Rule. So that's not just an airline policy. Um You know if you have any trouble with that that's something that you can report to the D. O. T. But the airlines are usually good about complying with the rule. So Transportation Secretary David Pete put a judge weighing in saying that airlines should try to improve their operations. Is it an easy fix? I mean does buddha have um have some real answers here? You know the problem is no it's not an easy fix. The airlines are doing what they can to hire but it takes a long time to train pilots really to train anyone. Um even people who are working on the ground or below the wing like baggage handlers and aircraft marche. Alors. You know it's a significant task to get them up to speed, let alone if you can even hire them. And what's a tight labor market right now um on top of that air traffic control is that shortages of staff really for decades And this is an ongoing problem still today And that's something that's very difficult to get people hired into and trained. So you know it's not an easy fix. The best thing that the airlines can do is try and you know optimize their schedules around expected problems. They can try and have a little bit less capacity. But you know that's something that the investors don't necessarily like to see. So it's a very difficult problem. It's a balance that they have to strike. And you know I think they're getting a little bit better about it This weekend's episodes were better than the meltdowns we saw over the holidays, but clearly there's still work to be done. Okay, well airline prices, we know of double digits honestly on a month by month basis, but even from the same time a year ago, and in some cases, even above those pre pandemic levels and so what's your expectation, David, as to where prices for plane tickets go from here? You know, it all depends on what the broader economy does, I think. But at the rate that we're going, it doesn't seem like inflation or any negative economic indicators have had any kind of impact on consumer demand. Gas prices are still high and the airlines need to recoup that um and it seems that customers are willing to pay that right now. So at this point, I don't expect prices or airfare to come down anytime soon. It's possible that it could happen. Um you know, if something else happens or there's some other broader movement in the economy, but, you know, right now the prices are high and people are willing to pay them. So just the basic laws of supply and demand to mean that they're going to stay high. Alright. David, Slotnick, senior aviation Business reporter at the points guy. David, thanks so much for coming on