CHICAGO (Reuters) - The lifting of COVID-19 curbs and bottled-up travel demand are translating into the strongest summer since the pandemic for U.S. carriers. However, frequent mass flight cancellations are creating chaos for their customers.
U.S. airlines have canceled more than 21,000 flights, or about 2.7% of the scheduled total since the Memorial Day holiday weekend in May, almost double last year's rate, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware. Flight delays are also higher than in 2021.
Here's how some major carriers have been performing since May 26.
Carriers Scheduled Canceled %canceled %delayed
flights flights
American 101,317 4,755 4.7% 27.8%
Airlines
United 74,571 2,125 2.8% 23.5%
Airlines
Delta Air 95,300 3,529 3.7% 20.6%
Lines
Southwest 124,350 1,283 1.0% 27.9%
Airlines
JetBlue 30,082 843 2.8% 35.3%
Airways
Alaska 22,671 183 0.8% 18.7%
Airlines
Spirit 23,663 314 1.3% 23.2%
Airlines
Frontier 15,271 101 0.7% 29.7%
Airlines
Hawaiian 7,186 0 0.0% 20.8%
Airlines
Republic 33,904 2,872 8.5% 21.9%
Airways
Source: FlightAware