Airlines’ Horrible Summer Of 2022 Will Have Its Last Gasp This Weekend

The coming weekend brings the last gasp of a summer that nearly everyone in aviation has long wished would be over.

The post-pandemic summer of 2022 — with its reduced capacity, stripped-down workforces at airlines and in air traffic control, overly exuberant scheduling and frequent thunderstorms in Charlotte, Dallas, Atlanta and the Northeast — exposed the fragility in U.S. commercial aviation.

Now, theoretically, the pressure will come off. Good riddance.

In the past week, the number of people going through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints has fallen below two million on three occasions. That did not happen at all from June 5 until August 16, and then not until Wednesday July 24. But last week, the number fell below two million on Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday. (The low was 1,862,084 on Saturday.)

On July 1, the Friday before July 4^th and the heaviest day of travel this summer, 2,490,490 people passed through TSA checkpoints.

Airports and airlines are of course preparing for heavy travel this weekend, but it won’t be as heavy as July 4.

At Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson International Airport, the expectation is for 1.6 million passengers from Thursday through Tuesday. Over the Fourth of July weekend, “ATL hosted more than 1.7 million passengers during the holiday period from Thursday, June 30, 2022 to Tuesday, July 5, 2022,” a spokeswoman said.

It’s the same at Orlando International Airport, the world’s seventh largest. MCO expects to have about 382,000 departing passengers from Thursday to Tuesday of Labor Day weekend, less than the July 4^th total. “It dropped off when our kids here (went) back to school,” said airport CEO Kevin Thibault. He called Labor Day weekend “the last hurrah.”

Travel app Hopper expects about 12.7 million passengers will depart from US airports over the holiday weekend. For the July 4th weekend, Hopper estimated 12.9 million passengers would travel. Unlike TSA, Hopper counts travelers who board flights, including passengers who are connecting, while TSA counts only those passengers who pass through security.

What lies ahead?

While summer travel was dominated by leisure flyers returning after two pandemic summers, “We’re seeing in many ways a return to normal travel patterns,” Vasu Raja, American Airlines chief commercial officer, said last week. “It was a white-hot summer. The shift was seeing as we go into fall, really does resemble (the normal) seasonal shift in what demand is.”

In the fall, “You can predict demand and build a plan around that,” Raja said. “The resumption of that predictability is a really big and important thing.”

Nevertheless, airlines still face pressure to resolve conflicts with pilots regarding pay rates and the summer’s burdensome scheduling.

The Air Line Pilots Association says members will picket on Thursday at 13 key airports. “ALPA pilots are calling on management to fix their operational problems that are causing a significant increase in flight delays, and cancellations,” the union said.

The airports include Atlanta (South Terminal), Chicago O’Hare, Detroit, New York Kennedy, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Orlando, Washington National, Salt Lake City, San Francisco and Seattle.

Additionally, Allied Pilots Association, which represents American Airlines pilots, will picket Thursday at the carrier’s headquarters in Dallas. “APA has proposed scheduling reforms that would support the safety margin and respect pilots’ and passengers’ needs,” the union said. “We need these reforms, our passengers need them, and the company’s shareholders need them.”

The cah