As poor air quality and the threat of severe storms plague states across the country including Illinois, Chicago-based United Airlines continues to struggle, accounting for more than 80% of canceled flights in the United States Thursday, a report from the Associated Press says.
And though United vowed to get back on track for the July 4 holiday weekend, the number of air travelers could set a pandemic-era record, officials say. According to the Chicago Department of Aviation, more than 1.49 million passengers are expected to travel through Midway and O'Hare International Airports.
Thursday is expected to be the busiest travel day, the FAA says, with more 52,500 total flights scheduled nationwide. However, by Thursday afternoon, hundreds of flights across the country had already been canceled, with Denver, Chicago, New York and Newark -- all hubs for United -- seeing the most delays, according to FlightAware.
By 12:30 p.m. Thursday, flight cancellations at O'Hare totaled 104, according to FlyChicago.com. In other cities, those numbers were even higher.
United CEO Scott Kirby blames the airline’s struggles in Newark on a shortage of air traffic controllers in the New York City area. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is pushing back against the criticism while conceding that a key Federal Aviation Administration facility in New York is severely understaffed.
“United Airlines has some internal issues they need to work through. They have really been struggling this week, even relative to other U.S. airlines,” Buttigieg told CNN. “But where we do agree is that there need to be more resources for air traffic control.”
The FAA plans to hire 3,300 controllers over two years, but they won’t be ready to help this summer, much less this weekend.
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United is offering triple pay to flight attendants who are scheduled off this weekend but agree to pick up extra flights, according to their union. The Association of Flight Attendants also says crews calling in for assignments have been put on hold for three hours or longer.
“We’re beginning to see improvement across our operation,” United said late Wednesday. “As our operation improves in the days ahead, we will be on track to restore our operation for the holiday weekend.”
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"Multiple" rounds of thunderstorms, some expected to be strong or severe, and scheduled to travel through the Chicago area Thursday, creating the potential for even more cancelations and delays due to winds of up to 60 mph and continued poor air quality as a result of smoke from Canadian wildfires.
Along with big crowds and storms, a technology issue could add to travelers’ difficulties. Federal officials say some airline planes may be unable to fly in bad weather starting Saturday because of possible interference from new 5G wireless service.
American, United, Southwest, Alaska and Frontier say all their planes have been retrofitted with new radio altimeters — those are devices that measure the plane’s height above the ground — and they do not expect disruptions due to 5G service.
However, Delta Air Lines has about 190 planes in its fleet of more than 900 that have not been updated because it can’t get enough altimeters from its supplier. Delta says it will schedule those planes to avoid landing in poor visibility while it works to upgrade them through the summer.
The issue affects several types of single-aisle planes that Delta uses on routes within the United States, including all its Airbus A220s and most of its Airbus A319 and A320 jets.
Smaller airlines that operate regional flights could also be affected by the radio interference issue, as could flights operated to the United States by foreign carriers.
