Ahead of unofficial start to summer, Delta announces 100 daily flight cuts

Just before Memorial Day weekend, Delta announced flight cuts that will last throughout a large chunk of the upcoming summer months. According to Thursday’s announcement, the cuts will primarily affect Delta’s U.S. and Latin America markets from July 1-Aug. 7.

“We’ll reduce service by approximately 100 daily departures,” Delta said in the announcement. “This will build additional resilience in our system and improve operational reliability for our customers and employees; we’ll continue to proactively adjust select flights in the coming weeks.”

Delta Chief Customer Experience Officer Allison Ausband cited “various factors currently impacting our operation” as reasons for the summer flight cuts. These include:

• Weather and air traffic control
• Vendor staffing
• COVID-19 cases contributing to more unscheduled absences than expected

Ausband said these factors “are resulting in an operation that isn’t consistently up to the standards Delta has set for the industry in recent years.”

“We deeply appreciate the energy and efforts of our people and the confidence of our customers as we adapt and pivot to ensure we provide the airline-of-choice experience we’re so proud to be known for,” Ausband said.

Delta says passengers will be offered assistance in rebooking or getting refunds. The company also said it “has issued a travel waiver – effective May 26-28 – for those who may be impacted in the days ahead” by inclement weather expected in the Southeast and Northeast U.S.

Other airlines are also cutting flights ahead of what could be a record U.S. travel season. Back in April, JetBlue Airways said it was reducing its planned summer schedule by more than 10%. Alaska Airlines is cutting 2%.

Delta forecasts it will carry approximately 2.5 million passengers this Memorial Day weekend – a 25% increase over 2021 levels.

“We know there is extreme demand to fly a very full schedule, but we continue to adjust our network and other aspects of our operation to balance customer demand for Delta with the realities of our operating environment,” Delta said in an employee memo.

Reuters contributed to this report.