The summer airline issues are here: what to expect when traveling this weekend.

Politics

By mid-afternoon Wednesday, United, which maintains a hub at Newark Liberty International Airport, had canceled about 15 percent of the nationwide flights it had scheduled for the day, according to FlightAware. Endeavor had canceled about 12 percent of its flights, while JetBlue had canceled about 9 percent and Republic had canceled about 8 percent.

United and JetBlue blame the problems on the weather, as well as the FAA

In a statement Wednesday, United said staff shortages in air travel over the weekend contributed to “a difficult work environment”. This blame echoes what the CEO, Scott Kirby, told staff in a memo earlier this week, saying that “the FAA flat out let us down this weekend.” JetBlue also said in a statement it had struggled to keep up with its flight schedule after air traffic control restricted travel to and from New York airports for all airlines.

What’s really going on with FAA personnel?

The FAA said Monday or Tuesday it had no personnel issues with air traffic control along the East Coast. In a statement, the agency said it “will always work with anyone who is seriously willing to join us in solving a problem.”

Yet air traffic control has long been understaffed, and controllers at many facilities often work six days a week to remedy those shortcomings.

In a report published last weekthe Department of Transportation found that most of the 26 critical air traffic control facilities it identified were understaffed by 15 percent or more as of March 2022. One such facility, New York Terminal Radar Approach Control, which oversees some of the most complex and challenging airspace, employed only 54 percent of its target number of controllers.

The report said the problem has been going on for years, something United’s Mr Kirby also noted on Monday.

“It is not the fault of the current FAA leadership that they are in this seriously understaffed position — it has been building for a long time before they were in charge,” he said in his memo.