The FAA claims that its hiring goals are on target to match traffic volume. In reality, the New York City delays expose a massive staffing crisis among air traffic controllers, which had been building for years but has been greatly exacerbated by the pandemic. Last week, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a CNN interview that weather delays “shouldn’t have created the kind of ripple effect through the system that it did.” Buttigieg went on to say, “That is something that, to me, is an indication that we still have not seen the improvements that we need, that the system is very brittle.” Summer thunderstorms in the Midwest and on the East Coast always play a part in flight delays and cancellations, but do not account for the sheer number of flight scheduling disruptions occurring now. During the same period, almost 483,000 flights were delayed, which is 24 percent of all scheduled flights. Flight tracking website FlightAware shows that 48,000 flights in the United States were canceled between May 27 and August 14, which is 2.3 percent of all scheduled flights. The national airlines, as major for-profit businesses eager to avoid blame, often point to air traffic controller staffing and other issues to excuse flight delays caused by their own operations or inclement weather. An FAA advisory said these delays were expected between 5 p.m.
On August 15, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a travel warning to passengers that flights to and from airports in New York City could be delayed on the ground for up to two hours, due to staffing shortages among air traffic controllers.
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