Copyright 2022, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.
FIRST PERSON/OPINION:
By David Swarts
Name me outdated, however I hearken to information on the radio each morning as I drive or journey to the Roadracing World places of work. I often hearken to KNX, a CBS affiliate, which may be discovered at 1070 AM and 97.1 FM right here in Southern California.
One of many lead native information tales on Monday morning was a rash of flight delays and cancellations at Los Angeles Worldwide Airport (LAX) over the Father’s Day weekend with expectations for extra delays and cancellations this summer time resulting from excessive journey demand and staffing shortages presently being skilled by the airways.
This week I’m flying from Southern California to the Pacific Northwest for the MotoAmerica occasion at Ridge Motorsports Park, so having already skilled one cancelled flight this 12 months, the report caught my consideration. In actual fact, I began taking a look at reserving a rental automotive to drive the 1,148 miles to Ridge Motorsports Park as a back-up plan in case one thing occurs to my flight.
Earlier than doing that, nevertheless, I made a decision to analyze the state of affairs with airline flight delays and cancellations for myself. And low and behold, I discovered KNX’s report, and lots of different related experiences lately, to be exaggerated.
On a median day, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) handles about 45,000 flights.
On Sunday, July 19, Father’s Day right here in the USA, there have been 6,284 flights delayed and 922 cancelled, based on FlightAware.com, the identical supply cited by KNX.
Of a median of 45,000 flights, meaning 13.96% had been delayed and a pair of.0% had been cancelled.
As of 10:30 a.m. Pacific Time Monday, June 20, 1,857 flights nationwide had been delayed and 328 had been cancelled. Which means 4.1% have been delayed and 0.73% have been cancelled to date at the moment.
Removed from being headline information and, for my part, deceptive.
Contemplating the probabilities of my flight getting me to Washington presently vary between 98-99.27%, I’ll take these odds versus spending 18 hours driving there.
Digging deeper into the on-time efficiency numbers offered by the FAA, flight delays nationwide and cancellations are up to date in 2022 when in comparison with 2021, and “air provider delays” brought on by staffing shortages and fewer flights are the most certainly wrongdoer. However when evaluating 2022 knowledge with pre-pandemic flight efficiency in 2019, delays aren’t up very a lot, 81% vs. 77% and cancellations are literally down from 1.99% to 1.55%.
What ought to potential air vacationers do?
As an skilled traveler with about 1.5 million miles flown during the last 20 years, I recommend taking the earliest doable flights of the day. Air site visitors delays have ripple results and solely worsen as a day goes on. I recommend flying with main airways out and in of main airports so there are different flights out there in case one thing does occur to yours. And I strongly recommend signing up for flight notifications out of your airline so you possibly can rapidly get alerts within the occasion there are delays or a cancellation of your flight.
And as a information client, for those who see or hear a information report that doubtlessly impacts you straight, I like to recommend doing 5 minutes of analysis earlier than making main adjustments to your plans.
