Airline Reliability Won’t Improve Until Air Traffic Control Staffs Up, Too

Recently, the U.S. airline industry has had a hard time operating reliably over busy travel periods, including this summer so far. Staffing shortages have been noted as the cause for most, and pilot availability especially has been challenging. For a busy summer, airlines would usually try to operate a high utilization, all planes flying schedule. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg recently had a call with major airline CEOs to talk about what the industry could do to be more reliable. With the July 4 holiday right on us, it is reasonable to ask when, if not now, customers can expect airlines to be reliable again.

The problem is that airlines cannot fix this problem by themselves. Yes, they can do a better job scheduling flights that actually have the crew to operate, but they also fly their planes in airspace and into airports with their own constraints. Without all three coordinating and staffing properly, customers will be caught in circumstances beyond any individual airline’s control.

U.S. Airlines Are Reacting, But Need To Do More

The U.S. airlines took their meeting with Secretary Buttigieg seriously, and they were working on these issues even before their meeting. Started mostly by the low-cost airlines but ultimately joined by the larger ones too, the industry has pulled down 15% of flights from June through August. Hiring is also on a record pace, raising costs of recruiting, training, and even offering sign-on incentives to get people at all levels fully staffed to support peak travel times. Bringing in thousands of new employees puts pressure on companies in many ways, including maintaining culture and putting new hires into positions where they can be successful. Pulling down flights when demand is high is not what airlines want to do, but they have done this to better align the selling schedule with operating realities. There is still better internal coordination necessary at some airlines.

Pay for many positions at many airlines has increased, as keeping employees is necessary in addition to recruiting new ones. When things do go wrong, airlines are more forgiving on flight changes and have invested in both technology and staff to be able to accommodate disrupted passengers more completely and quickly. These changes don’t mean that everything is fixed, but to suggest that airlines are not reacting aggressively is also not accurate. It would be nice to think that airlines could fix the customer reliability problem all by themselves, but this is not reality either.

Air Traffic Control Is Also Under-Staffed

Airlines fly in a system managed by the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Air Traffic Control (ATC). ATC manages congested airspace using several tools. One of these is known as ground delay programs (GDP), aimed at keeping airplanes on the ground longer and not releasing them into the air to cause further congestion. A disproportionate amount of the air traffic congestion, and thus delays and cancellations, happen along the U.S. east coast. This includes busy northeast cities like New York and Boston, and Florida. Florida is such a popular flight destination that when Florida slows down, a lot of the country does too.

Key FAA facilities, like in Jacksonville, have been understaffed most days according to the Airline Pilots Association. The FAA has reportedly been hiring up just like the airlines, but when ATC can’t keep up, it still slows up even the staffed-up airlines. When weather is difficult, airlines expect to work with ATC on programs to increase aircraft separation and slow down arrival and departure rates in busy traffic areas. But even many hours after the weather has left, short-staffing at ATC locations means that weather gone by mid morning is still delaying flights late into the day. The busier the airport, the more likelihood for ATC delays. All of the hubs operated by the large U.S airlines are, almost by definition, very busy airports.

Airlines Have Asked The FAA For Specific Support

Through their lobby group Airlines For America, the U.S. Airlines have asked for specific help from the FAA to help get industry reliability back on track. These include a commitment to staff up, equal to the commitment that the Secretary asked of the airlines themselves. Airlines have been asked to provide staffing plans for the busy July 4 holiday, so airlines have asked the same for ATC. Airlines have also asked for better coordination among multiple Federal agencies that compete for air space. These include space flights and military activities.

Asking the FAA for help is not stopping the airlines from doing what they can to ensure a better experience for holiday travelers. But it’s clear that the airlines and ATC both have a role to play in getting the industry reliable again. As consumers we should expect that everyone steps up.

There Is No Incentive To Be Unreliable

With perfect hindsight, airlines shouldn’t have let so many senior pilots leave the properties when the pandemic hit. But faced with massive cash losses and no visibility on a recovery, they had no other practical choice. Many have criticized the airlines for squandering billions of dollars of aid given to the airlines for Covid mitigation. But these criticisms miss the fact that most of the money was used to keep at least some staff on property. Without this aid, the problems would be even worse today. That said, airlines don’t need any incentive to operate reliably. That’s because flight delays and cancellations are very expensive for airlines, not just frustrating for customers.

Airline wages go up during unreliable operations because extra staff are needed as more time is paid for waiting versus flying. A plane that arrives late causes customers on the next flight to be late, and perhaps the crew will have timed out and must be replaced. Handling displaced customers means employees at airports and call centers work overtime, and a lot of fuel is wasted as airplanes wait for take-off slots or circle for an hour before landing. The point is that costs are lower, and profits can be higher, when an airline operates according to the schedule it plans and sells.

Increasing Need For More Efficient Air Traffic Control

The fact that ATC can’t keep up with existing demand is a challenge in many ways. Not only does this mean that this summer may continue with airline cancellations and delays, but the demand for restricted airspace is growing every day. Growth of private aviation, new technologies like vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (VTOLs, or eVTOLS if electric), and commercial drone activity will put a lot of pressure on the use of airspace. The not-surprising reality is that these new airspace uses will be targeted at the highest density cities where air traffic is already a problem, like New York and Los Angeles.

The country has talked about a “next generation” for the air traffic control system for decades. Technology should allow aircraft to operate more closely together but stay safe, offer more direct routing between cities, and be more proactive when weather or other complicating problems happen. When we talk about infrastructure as roads and bridges, this needs to include the roads and bridges in the air, too.

So when can customers expect the airlines to be reliable again? Well, customers should expect to get what they buy but also need to be realistic about delays and cancellations. This is more true in often-congested airspace, like New York, Florida, and Southern California. Airlines are doing what they can and have strong incentives to make the system work. The FAA, through ATC, also needs to ensure that the system we use today operates at maximum throughput today while continuing the investment to increase capability over time.