Travelers dealing with canceled flights and long delays with little recourse

Kelechi Jaavaid's flight home to Minneapolis in June was delayed, then canceled, forcing him to take an overnight bus to return home from Milwaukee.

The next month, the Rogers man and his wife flew Sun Country Airlines again to Charleston, S.C., but their checked luggage didn't make the trip with them.

Meanwhile, Delta Air Lines said it's cooperating with the federal investigation into Flight 555 that taxied in Las Vegas for hours last month in triple-digit temperatures before returning to the terminal with at least one on board falling ill.

"You have to prepare for a delay or for them to cancel summer travel. You have to prepare for inconsistencies," said Jaavaid, who received a refund for the canceled flight and eventually recovered his luggage. "It's not always a comfortable experience."

Thunderstorms and staggering heat. Long lines at airports for security and checking bags. A shortage of air-traffic controllers. Airlines still ramping up crew staffing from pandemic lows after layoffs and early retirements. All have caused headaches for travelers once again this summer.

Capacity — whether infrastructure or personnel — remains a challenge for airlines in the post-pandemic environment.

"The closer you get to capacity, the greater the delays become because things don't run absolutely on schedule," said Bob Mann, a New York-based aviation consultant.

The chaos is easing from a year ago, when pandemic-weary travelers flocked back to the skies after COVID-19 shutdowns and postponed travel during the height of the pandemic.

But passengers are still dealing with canceled flights and long delays with little recourse. Airlines generally don't compensate for weather delays and cancellations, and those accounted for 75% of all flight disruptions greater than 15 minutes from June 2017 to May 2022 as carriers reported, according to the FAA.

Ed Bastian, chief executive of Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines, said during a second-quarter earnings call last month "aviation infrastructure is still fragile, and the industry continues to face multiple constraints across the supply chain, aircraft delivery delays and training needs."

Experts advised those flying this summer and during upcoming holidays to pack a carry-on bag with medicines and extra clothes if checking luggage just in case of lost bags. They also suggested arriving two hours early for domestic flights and three for increasingly popular summertime international trips.

Signing up for flight notifications by text helps keep track of itinerary changes in real time. And of course, flying nonstop is the best, though not always the cheapest, option.

"If you take the first flight out or a morning flight, if there's multiple flights a day, you're much better off," said Linda Snyder, vice president of travel and retail services for AAA Minneapolis. "When you're planning your vacation, if you're coming home, and you have something major the next day, give yourself some padding."

Both Delta, the dominant carrier at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, and growing leisure carrier Sun Country, based in Minneapolis, hold strong completion records, finishing nearly all flights.

On-time performance is less consistent.

From 2019, the percentage of on-time flights overall dropped around two percentage points last year to 76% nationally and hasn't improved much this year, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

In July, 68% of Delta flights from MSP departed on time, and just more than 71% of flights arrived on time, the carrier said. By contrast, Delta was the most on-time North American airline in 2022, with 84% on time, aviation analytics company Cirium reported.

Sun Country said in July its on-time departures were at 61%, and on-time arrivals were at 72% systemwide. Weather has been a challenging factor this summer industrywide, spokeswoman Wendy Burt said. The airline said it prioritizes flight completion, which can negatively impact on-time performance. (Cirium had no data for Sun Country.)

Airlines are working to increase staffing to meet demand but sometimes wind up with too few crew members with available hours at the right place and time as a month winds down, Mann said.

"When a flight is canceled, you don't have any empty seats to accommodate all those canceled seats," Mann said.

As storms and extreme heat continue to plague the Northern Hemisphere this season, Mann cautions weather is playing a bigger role in travel snags.

"We've had day after day of thunderstorms in the Ohio Valley and up and down the East Coast," he said. "It's caused significant delays from Washington to Boston."

The Air Travel Consumer Report the Office of Aviation Consumer Protection issued in June said about 7% of delays in April were related to the carrier and another 8% because of late-arriving aircraft.

Meanwhile, United Airlines blamed FAA air-traffic control staffing shortages for delays and cancellations earlier this summer and scaled back Newark, N.J., routes as a result.

The majority of the airports with the highest percentage of delays are in Hawaii and Florida, according to a June 27 InsureMyTrip analysis of government data. While MSP ranked fourth on its list of airports with the fewest delays, the airport was third highest for weather delays behind airports in Salt Lake City and Reno. MSP was fifth highest in cancellations, with Dallas Love Field topping that list.

Even pre-pandemic, summer travel could be problematic. Aviation consultant Ross Feinstein recalled July 4th to Labor Day were the busiest travel days of the year when he was communications director for American Airlines before he departed in 2020.

"Every summer when I was at American was a challenge," he said.

To improve its customer service, Sun Country is rolling out new digital tools to help passengers more quickly secure meals and hotels on the airline when delays and cancellations occur, said Brian Davis, the airline's chief marketing officer.

When a delay of more than four hours occurs because of an airline issue, customers have meal vouchers sent to their phones. Customers with a cancellation related to Sun Country can book a hotel and transportation from their phone on the airline's dime if stuck somewhere overnight.

"I think it is a big leap forward to get better tools in our customers' hands," Davis said.

The carrier apologized for Jaavaid's experience, and the professional comedian continues to travel for his job. But now he's mentally prepared for anything.

"If one flight is delayed, it's a chain reaction that makes the whole schedule off," he said.