Air transport is back in force. Not everyone was ready.
Customers face hours of phone waiting for help. Long lines have emerged as airlines, airports and the Transportation Security Administration scramble to hire staff and accommodate the influx of passengers.
Airlines and airport executives have said they expect vaccines and easing restrictions will rekindle appetite for travel, but the speed and scale of the resurgence has exceeded their expectations. Even without the return of most business and international travel, the number of people passing through US airports has surpassed two million on some days, a threshold last reached in March 2020. July 4, usually the peak of the summer travel season is looming.
U.S. carriers are expected to fly more than 88 million seats in July, a 32% increase from April. It’s still well below 2019, but airlines are adding capacity much faster than in the past. During the same four-month period in 2019, airlines increased the number of seats in the market by just 9% to meet summer demand, according to Cirium, an aviation data provider.
Demand quickly absorbed the additional seats. Planes are 83% full on average, and even more crowded during busy periods. Airlines last year offered big discounts and deals. Now plane tickets are on the rise. The Labor Department announced last week that its airfare index rose 7% in May after gaining 10.2% in April. Carriers say leisure fares are on track to meet or exceed 2019 levels this summer.
The rapid increase caused some growing pains.
U.S. airlines have received $ 54 billion in government assistance so they can continue to pay their workers and avoid the time off and layoffs that would make it harder to meet growing demand when the time comes. But carriers have also encouraged many workers to retire early or take extended holidays to stretch aid as they faced dire prospects last year.
When travel started to return this spring, American Airlines Group Inc.
says he’s been inundated with calls from confused travelers planning to fly for the first time in a year or more. Many needed extra help navigating new rules or collecting travel credits for canceled trips, so the calls were more complex and lengthy, said Julie Rath, vice president of customer experience and American reservations. Disruptions like bad weather sometimes made the problem worse, and some customers say they waited for hours.
About a quarter of American Airlines Group Inc.’s reservations staff had chosen to retire or take unpaid leave last year, Ms. Rath said. American called back staff who were on leave and began asking recent retirees if they would be interested in coming back for the summer.
“We knew it would come back and come back quickly,” Ms. Rath said. “But it’s even faster than expected.
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“We are at a critical point. ”
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Delta Airlines Inc.
hires 1,300 permanent employees to answer customer calls to help replace workers who left last year, in addition to seeking temporary help for the summer and upgrading technology so customers can make it more on their own, a spokesperson said. Other airlines, including Alaska Air Group, are warning customers about long waits before answering calls. Hawaiian Airlines said it was increasing the staffing of its call center.
Airlines and airports have advised passengers to arrive early at some understaffed airports to avoid long lines at security checkpoints. TSA screening officers are working overtime and the agency is deploying them to airports across the country that need it most, a spokesperson said. It has hired almost 3,600 new screening officers and now plans to meet its goal of 6,000 new screening officers by the fall.
Workers such as wheelchair pushers and baggage handlers are rare. Prospect Airport Services, which supplies such workers at 34 airports, said the company has raised wages by $ 2 an hour in some cities and offered bonuses of up to $ 1,000 for those who stay 90 days. , said James Wajda, chief operating officer. But demands for wheelchairs are growing faster than the company can hire. He went out to push wheelchairs himself.
“We are at a critical point,” he said.
Restaurants and stores that operate at airports have not been able to hire quickly enough to fully reopen.
Some restaurants offer signing bonuses and increase base pay to attract workers, but pay isn’t the only issue, said Rob Wigington, executive director of the Airport Restaurant & Retail Association. Employees at bars, restaurants and airport stores must undergo a background check through the TSA, a process that has slowed hiring, he said.
Trying to predict when and how quickly the trip would recover was almost impossible, said Mookie Patel, director of business and finance at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.
Passengers sometimes needed a reminder on the basics of travel. Mr Patel said more and more people forgot IDs, packed overweight bags and struggled in ways that sometimes slowed things down.
Smaller airports located in suddenly hot vacation destinations, such as those near national parks and beaches, are facing record levels of air traffic this summer. They must find new places to park overnight planes at the airport, add security screening lanes and take other measures to deal with the influx.
“It’s a lucky problem to have,” said Sean Briggs, director of business development at the airport in Boise, Idaho.
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In Bozeman, MT, airport officials expanded counters and acquired new boarding bridges, but airlines continued to announce new flights, increasing capacity by 25% beyond what officials had planned earlier this year, airport manager Brian Sprenger said.
“We haven’t overflowed our parking lot yet. But we are going to be very close in the next few weeks, ”he said.
Write to Alison Sider at [email protected]
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