Insight: The Airline Staffing Crisis and Flight Cancellations

Both Spirit and American Airlines had multiple challenges resulting in flight cancellations over the last few days as monthly staffing schedules changed over.  Combined with weather delays, this created a logistics nightmare resulting in multiple flight cancellations as crews became unavailable for their new schedule destinations.   There have been some unconfirmed reports that a crew scheduling system may have been involved in the hiccups at both airlines.  History tells us what happens when there is an error in such a system.  Apparently, many crew members went over their daily time limits, thereby exacerbating the problems.

Almost all US carriers are short of staff today as the industry ramps up to accommodate additional demand.  Despite a significant number of flight cancellations on Monday, the industry set another post-pandemic record for passengers screened.  Demand will soon outstrip supply, as airlines will have additional difficulties adding to their schedules given staffing constraints and the time it takes to return aircraft to service.  This is, of course, to be expected after the major industry trauma that the pandemic caused.