Airlines hit by staffing shortages during Easter travels

As millions of passengers planned to travel for Easter, pilots, flight attendants and other airline staff are left frustrated by the staff shortages leftover from the height of the pandemic. Delta Air booked had booked more tickets than it had in the last month and was expected to fly 480,000 passengers per day through Sunday. United Airlines will carry more than 400,000 passengers per day through Monday. 

But amidst the staff shortages, Southwest Airlines Pilot Association warned that fatigue has become its "No. 1 safety threat" while pilots at Alaska Airlines have been protesting for weeks over their workloads. The airline has responded by cutting its schedule down in June. 

Peter Greenberg, senior travel adviser at CBS says, "We're going to be in for some really tough three or four months coming up because I don't see any short-term solutions to try to satisfy the demand when you don't have the staff to support it. The airlines were over-scheduled, they still are. And the problem with that is everything goes nuts because if you throw in a weather issue or a maintenance issue, the system collapses." 

Source: CBS News