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Major US airlines cancel hundreds of flights and delay over 1,000

Misty Severi June 23, 04:47 PMJune 23, 04:47 PM Video Embed

Major airlines in the United States canceled hundreds of flights and delayed over a thousand other flights Thursday, according to the flight tracker FlightAware.

Over 600 flights were canceled, with 1,400 delayed by American, United, JetBlue, and Delta airlines, the flight tracker said. American Airlines canceled and delayed the most, with 152 flights canceled and more than 200 delayed.

AMERICAN AIRLINES ENDS SERVICE TO THREE NORTHEAST CITIES DUE TO PILOT SHORTAGE

Some airlines are scaling down in an effort to prevent delays. Earlier Thursday, United announced a decrease of 50 domestic flights a day out of Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey, to help minimize flight delays. The new decrease will go into effect July 1, just ahead of the July 4 weekend.

“After the last few weeks of irregular operations in Newark, caused by many factors including airport construction, we reached out to the [Federal Aviation Administration] and received a waiver allowing us to temporarily adjust our schedule there for the remainder of the summer,” Jon Roitman, United’s executive vice president, said in an internal memo obtained by CNBC. “Even though we have the planes, pilots, crews, and staff to support our Newark schedule, this waiver will allow us to remove about 50 daily departures which should help minimize excessive delays and improve on-time performance — not only for our customers, but for everyone flying through Newark.”

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg encouraged CEOs of the major airlines last week to prepare for a surge of flights over the Fourth of July weekend after thousands of flights were canceled and delayed over Memorial Day weekend.

Over three million people are expected to fly during the holiday, with a total of 47 million expected to travel over 50 miles from their homes, according to Fox News. The daily average of travelers passing through airports was more than 2.2 million in June.

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