Keyes: Being a pilot is not an entry-level job. Thompson: Why is it taking so long to adjust? Why is it so hard to hire pilots or bring back more airplanes? So when travel demand started rebounding much quicker than they anticipated, the airlines were caught flat-footed. They assumed that this was going to be a six-year recovery period, not an 18-month recovery period.
But would they have made the same call if they had known how quickly travel demand would rebound? Almost certainly not. Those decisions certainly helped improve the balance sheet throughout 2020. Airlines were trying to become as lean as possible to reduce those operating expenses with the anticipation that they were not going to be making much money. American Airlines laid off 30 percent of their staff, through buyouts, early retirements, or otherwise. Now, as travel rebounds, we are paying the price.ĭelta shed 30 percent of their employees-almost 30,000 people cut from their staff. That meant laying off staff, shedding pilots, selling airplanes, and retiring aircraft. The 9/11 attacks caused a 7 percent drop in overall travel. Scott Keyes: The amount of turmoil in the airline industry over the past two years is unlike anything we’ve ever seen in travel. This transcript has been edited and condensed.ĭerek Thompson: Scott, what’s happening and why?
In an interview for my podcast Plain English, I spoke with Scott Keyes, the founder of the Scott’s Cheap Flights newsletter, about why air travel has been such a mess this summer. The major carriers JetBlue, American Airlines, and Delta canceled nearly 10 percent of their flights last weekend, creating mayhem at major airports. Around the world, security lines are getting brutally long and cancellations and delays are spiking. The latest victim of acute NWS is air travel. seems to suffer from chronic Nothing Works Syndrome.
From the oil markets to the baby-formula markets to the general sense of safety and disorder, the U.S. “The very first symptom of the general collapse was an old one: nothing worked.” The sentiment is old-it comes from Doris Lessing’s 1969 novel, The Four-Gated City-but it’s hard to think of a better epitaph for the economic vibes of 2022.
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