There are continuing stories of horrible flying experiences, delayed flights, missed connections, and near misses in midair. The airline industry isn’t functioning well.
Charlie Leocha, President of Travelers United, says a lot of the responsibility for the overwhelmed system lies with the airlines themselves. “The airlines have set up unrealistic schedules for themselves.” They book more flights than they can manage.
And then there is air traffic controllers. “The traffic controllers are a bigger problem. The traffic controllers just can’t handle the amount of traffic. So now we’re having problems during the summer.”
The software used by the industry is a relic of a bygone era, staff are abundant but woefully inadequately trained to handle increasingly unruly belligerent passengers, and there aren’t enough well season, experienced pilots.
New York City affects 70% of all flights across America in some way, shape or form. A kink in the system beginning in the Big Apple can ripple across middle America, down to Texas, and across to the Pacific.
photo: Getty Images