American Airlines Ends Service in Four Cities
Staffing shortages continue to be a big problem for airlines as travel demand reaches pre-pandemic levels. That includes pilots. Many of them were forced to retire early back in 2020 as airlines cut costs. And now they’re struggling to fill those positions.
The pilot shortage has caused many disruptions and now American Airlines is dropping 4 cities from its network because of it. Toledo, Ohio; Dubuque, Iowa; Ithaca, New York; and Islip, New York have all been dropped as American and its regional subsidiaries struggle with a staffing. The four cities previously had two flights a day to larger American Airlines hubs, but those flights will stop as of September 7th.
“We have 100 regional aircraft on the ground that we want to fly but can’t due to lack of regional pilots,” American Airlines spokesperson Brian Metham told USA Today. “Like many network carriers, we have reduced our regional flying in recent months in response to the regional pilot shortage.”
American Airlines said it will continue serving other airports less than 100 miles from each of the four cities that are losing service. The airline said it is taking other steps, including boosting regional pilot pay rates, to make its operation more reliable going forward.
American just came off a rough weekend where it canceled many flights. But the same problems persist at other airlines as well. So get ready for many more cancellations if you plan to travel this summer.
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Those places have airports? Who knew?
sadly islip is the worst loss 🙁
for those wanting to fly to long island without dealing with JFK/LGA, this was ideal! this just now leaves SWA and frontier as the sole operators of this regional airport
So much for those many billions of dollars we gave AA to keep employees on.