Flying Will Be Messy This Year. See How Bad It Is Across the US

The busiest Memorial Day weekend in over a decade. A record year for summer travel. And chaos in the US airline industry.

It all means Americans should brace for disappointment when planning their next trip. US carriers are adding seats this summer at the slowest pace since the pandemic, according to a Bloomberg analysis of data from Cirium, an aviation analytics company. Airlines have also trimmed about 6.2 million seats from their June-through-August US flight schedules compared to the highest number they’d planned in recent months, the data show.

Hardest hit are cities such as Orlando, Atlanta and Columbia, South Carolina. Flights between New York City and Miami have been reduced the most of any route nationwide.

The changes illustrate the tight spot airlines find themselves in as fleet troubles clash with still-strong consumer demand. In a year mired by late Boeing Co. deliveries, regulatory delays and a massive jet-engine recall, many carriers simply can’t get enough planes.

The reasoning behind how much and where airlines are trimming varies. Deep-discounters Frontier Airlines and Spirit Airlines Inc. have pulled back from Florida after the industry added too much capacity there last year, driving fares too low for the routes to be financially viable.

Others — namely, United Airlines Holdings Inc. and Southwest Airlines Co. — have had to adjust plans this year due to a shortfall in new aircraft deliveries by Boeing, as the planemaker works to tighten factory quality controls after a panel blew off a 737 Max during flight in January. In addition, a growing number of Airbus SE’s top-selling A320neo family of jets are being sidelined to fix defective engine parts supplied by RTX Corp.

“Airlines are looking heavily at the profitability of each flight in their network,” said David Richardson, executive vice president and general manager for supply in the Americas at Flight Centre Travel Group, a global corporate and leisure travel agency. More often, they’re pulling out of secondary markets to prioritize those with enough demand to fill larger, more profitable planes, he said.

In some cases, the reasons are less clear. Delta Air Lines Inc. alone has pared about 580,000 seats originating from its massive hub at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, according to Bloomberg’s analysis. Some of those are to mid-sized cities, but New York and Miami routes are seeing significant reductions, too.

Airlines frequently move capacity between cities based on shifts in demand, operating costs, fares and actions by competitors. This summer’s seat reductions also represent just a small fraction of the roughly 279 million seats available this summer, according to Cirium.

But some places, mainly smaller Southern cities, are seeing more than 10% of their capacity cut. For summer flights leaving out of Jackson, Mississippi, 18% of seats have been trimmed so far.

The reductions come as official estimates suggest a bumper year for summer travel. The US Federal Aviation Administration anticipates the most flights over the Memorial Day holiday period since 2010, kicking off the seasonal bonanza that runs through Labor Day in early September. The Transportation Security Administration said passenger volumes this summer should rise as much as 10% above the previous record set last year.

Airline executives typically try to avoid adding too many flights and sparking a race to the bottom on fares, said Robert Mann, head of consultant R.W. Mann & Co. But the unexpected jet shortages have changed the calculus, he said. “Now, it’s ‘I don’t have enough airplanes to do what I wanted to do, now I’m going to be short.”

For travelers, that could mean trouble finding a seat on the flight of their choice. And although flyers aren’t as likely to find a deal, they also won’t see sky-high fares. The cuts have had the effect of more closely matching supply with demand, which is helping to stabilize ticket prices. Travel search engine Hopper Inc. estimates that the average domestic round-trip fare for the summer will slip to $305 from $324 last year, the first year-over-year decline since 2020.

More than two in three seats cut by carriers have been on routes to or from airports in the South, according to Bloomberg’s analysis. Flights originating in Atlanta and Orlando saw some of the biggest cuts in overall terms, shedding about 860,000 and 335,000 seats, respectively. Airports serving New York City and Chicago have each seen more than 500,000 seats cut, according to Bloomberg’s analysis.

Bloomberg analyzed data from 10 US airlines’ schedules for June through August. The difference in seats represents peak estimates over a rolling four-month period for those months compared to plans as of May 18.

Delta cut about 2.3 million total seats from its peak plans over the rolling four-month periods analyzed by Bloomberg, by far the most of any carrier. About a quarter of those originated in Atlanta. And although just a 5% reduction, Delta’s cuts at its biggest hub cascade across the US, with cities in the Carolinas and Florida seeing some of the biggest reductions.

A Delta spokesperson said the carrier decides where to allocate flying capacity based on where it sees demand, declining to be more specific. The company also will add about 700,000 domestic seats to and from Atlanta this summer compared to summer 2023, the representative said.

Southwest has said it’s also cutting weekly flights from Atlanta 15% this summer, routes that executives have said were pared due to lackluster financial performance.

Cities in Florida including Miami and Orlando are also seeing deep cuts as Spirit, Frontier, Southwest and others pull back from the market.

JetBlue Airways Corp. is eliminating flights between Fort Lauderdale and cities including Atlanta, New Orleans and Salt Lake City because they are no longer profitable. The carrier is also slashing flights elsewhere in a bid to stem years of losses after its planned merger with Spirit was blocked on antitrust grounds earlier this year.

“With less aircraft time available and the need to improve our financial performance, more than ever, every route has to earn its right to stay in the network,” Dave Jehn, JetBlue’s vice president of network planning, said in a March letter to employees.

The main issue throwing off airlines’ scheduling plans, though, are aircraft shortages.

Southwest is reducing flying in markets across its network in part because it can’t get enough planes from Boeing and ending service entirely at four airports – one each in Texas, upstate New York, Mexico and Washington state. The carrier now plans to get 20 new Boeing 737 Max 8 jets this year after having to trim the figure three times since January, when it expected 79 deliveries.

“It is absolutely frustrating,” Southwest Chief Executive Officer Bob Jordan said in an interview last month. “You have to plan and replan and replan.”

United has asked its pilots to take unpaid leave this month due to Boeing delivery delays, which the union for United pilots has said have “significantly reduced” the carrier’s 2024 flying plans.

Months-long engine repairs on Airbus planes are keeping an average of two dozen aircraft out of commission each month at Spirit, and 11 at JetBlue, numbers expected to grow by year-end.

It all adds up to the slowest rate of summertime expansion in years. Among the eight largest US airlines, the number of available domestic seats will be the highest since 2019, but up just 5% from last summer, according to Cirium data. That compares with 8% year-over-year growth in 2023 and a 7% gain in 2022.

United plans to increase the number of seats it will fly in June through August by just 2% from last year – below the more than 12% jumps seen during the same periods in 2023 and 2022, according to Cirium data.

And it’s only just the beginning. Industry executives have warned that the Boeing delays and the engine recall affecting Airbus planes will reduce their fleet size even more in the back half of the year — just in time for the winter holiday travel season.