DETROIT – Delta Air Lines canceled about 100 flights on Sunday due to staff shortages and opened mid-range seats a month earlier than expected to carry more passengers.
The airline says it has had more than 1 million passengers in recent days, the largest number before the coronavirus pandemic began last year.
“We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience, and most were re-registered for the same day of travel,” the airline said in a statement on Sunday.
Delta DAL,
has taken steps to increase passenger capacity, including the opening of mid-range seats on Sundays and Mondays, in an effort to accommodate passengers.
On Wednesday, the airline announced that it will stop blocking the seats in the middle starting with May. The move was made in April last year to keep passengers at bay, a policy the Delta CEO has repeatedly cited to boost confidence in the airline. The seats will be reopened as air travel recovers and more people are vaccinated against COVID-19, the airline said.
Delta said the middle seats were only open for Sunday and Monday, and its policy of blocking seats has not changed. Where necessary, the seats could be unlocked to take customers to their destination on the same day.
“Delta teams have worked through a variety of factors, including staffing, a large number of vaccinations of employees and pilots returning to work,” the airline said in a statement. Some employees had side effects from vaccination.
On Sunday, websites in three Delta hubs showed 33 canceled arrival or departure flights. There were 19 at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, another 11 at Detroit Metropolitan Airport and three more at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport.
Delta said Wednesday that nearly 65 percent of people who flew the Delta last year expect to have at least one dose of new vaccines by May 1st. This gave Delta the assurance to end the seat limits, he said.
The airline industry has been divided over the usefulness of locking the middle seats to reduce the risk of COVID-19 spreading on a flight. Airlines, including Delta, Southwest LUV,
Alaska ALK,
and JetBlue JBLU,
limited seats for months, while United Airlines UAL,
never the American AAL,
he did it only briefly.
Social distancing is difficult, if not impossible, on a plane, even with empty middle seats – a point that United CEO Scott Kirby has often pointed out to explain his airline’s resistance to seat blocking.
Air travel in the United States is recovering from pandemic lows. More than 1 million passengers have passed through US airports for each of the last 20 days, although traffic in March remains down by almost half compared to the same month in 2019.
The figures are rising in the direction of the crucial summer holiday season. Last summer was a disaster for airlines, contributing to the Delta’s loss of more than $ 12 billion year-round. Airlines are eager to increase revenue as quickly as possible, and that means selling more seats.