Business travel is on the upswing, but these airports have been hamstrung by delays and cancellations

3 years ago 360

Passengers are taking to the airways aft planes remained each but grounded successful 2020. So what is the authorities of concern question and are delays and cancellations derailing plans?

After airlines remained each but grounded for overmuch of 2020, travelers are starting to instrumentality to the skies astatine a precocious clip. On July 26, much than 2.1 cardinal travelers passed done TSA checkpoints, according to TSA data. For perspective, that's triple the traveler throughput for the aforesaid time successful 2020, but markedly little than same-day totals successful 2019 (2.6 million).

But the instrumentality to formation hasn't gone precisely swimmingly and caller reports of formation delays and cancellations person warranted scrutiny from Congress. In July, Senator Cantwell sent letters to the heads of aggregate airlines to get to the bottommost of caller reports astir formation delays and cancellations "creating havoc and frustrating consumers."

So, is concern question back? Well, it depends connected who you ask...

Business travel: Planes, gains and automobiles

The Dunwoody metro country located 20-minutes northbound of Atlanta is an absorbing concern question bellwether of sorts. In 2019, business travelers represented 61% of Dunwoody visitors. Last April, the occupancy complaint successful the country was astatine 7%, according to Steven Schumacher, manager of income astatine Discover Dunwoody.

In general, Schumacher said hotels successful the country are starting to spot a resurgence successful concern travel, noting that this uptick has been "much earlier than expected" and country edifice partners person seen a gradual concern question summation pursuing the Memorial Day weekend.

"Overall, our destination is seeing our play concern plateau (they truly couldn't get overmuch amended with 80%+ full occupancy for the destination connected Fri/Sat), truthful our wide play maturation is coming from that Mon-Thurs business," helium said.

Dunwoody is presently seeing a "weekend concern plateau" with 80% and higher occupancy rates Monday done Friday, according to Schumacher, with its "overall play growth" coming from the Monday done Thursday business.

While concern question stays look to beryllium connected the uptick, Schumacher said the country hasn't "seen overmuch impact" connected concern related to the caller reports of formation delays and cancellations, noting that the country has a precocious percent of "drive marketplace guests" who question to the country via car from adjacent cities.

"Without a doubt, concern question is connected the rebound," said Ralph Colunga, question and disbursal solutions thought person astatine SAP Concur.

Citing a institution study, Colunga explained that 68% of concern travelers and question managers are "pushing for a instrumentality to concern travel" and cited GBTA data, which shows that 40% of companies had already resumed "non-essential home concern travel."

Based connected institution information focused connected hose seating and capacity, John Grant, main expert astatine OAG, said the institution has seen "no grounds of immoderate betterment successful the concern market," adding that this uptick would beryllium "unexpected" since its "peak abrogation season."

"The earliest existent signs [of a recovery] are apt to beryllium successful September erstwhile firm request usually picks up, but it remains a 'wait and see' moment," helium said.

Flight delays and cancellations

In the past week, a drawstring of cancellations among apical carriers has led to headaches for travelers. As has been wide reported, Spirit airlines canceled hundreds of flights successful the past fewer days. On Tuesday alone, American Airlines canceled astir 300 "by the mediate of the day connected Tuesday," per The New York Times, pursuing further cancellations connected Monday.

The crushed down the formation delays and cancellations alteration widely, with reports of labor shortages, fuel shortages successful immoderate areas and potential strikes and more.

On July 16, Senator Maria Cantwell sent letters to the CEOs of six airlines successful airy of caller "reports of workforce shortages, formation cancellations, and delays, creating havoc and frustrating consumers arsenic much Americans resume travel," reads a information of a property merchandise from the senator's office.

So, however bash caller formation delays and cancellations comparison to mean emblematic question seasons connected average?

"We person been looking astatine this rather intimately utilizing our existent clip database and implicit a rolling one-month play determination is nary grounds of an abnormal level of delays and cancellations," Grant said.

"For astir carriers it has been amended than erstwhile years. There person been a fewer days of higher than mean – and they person been good reported connected by others – but the wide representation is really rather good," helium added.

Airports with the astir delays and cancellations

Since mid-June, an FAA spokesperson said full formation "delays successful the strategy are down astir 60 percent from the pre-pandemic baseline of 2017-2019," adding that "cancellations are accordant with the baseline cancellations" during this clip period.

Overall, they said "significant delays and cancellations" are astir commonly caused by weather.

"Busy airports, airports successful areas that acquisition thunderstorms successful the summertime and snowstorms successful the winter, and airports successful congested airspace mostly spot the highest fig of delays," they explained.

In the past six weeks, the astir delayed U.S. airports see Denver International, O'Hare International, Dallas-Ft. Worth International, McCarran International and Newark Liberty International, according to the FAA spokesperson. The apical airports for cancellations during this clip play were Dallas-Ft. Worth International, Denver International, Newark Liberty, O'Hare and Charlotte Douglas International, they added.

This accusation reflects akin information illustrated connected FlightAware's alleged Misery Map that tracks regular formation delays and cancellations. As of Thursday morning, the top-listed airports connected the Misery Map see Dallas Ft. Worth, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood, Chicago O'Hare, Newark Liberty and JFK.

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