American Airlines to end operations to three cities

Starting September 7, American Airlines will halt operations to the three destinations, among staff shortages and recent global flight delays and cancellations crisis.

“We’re extremely grateful for the care and service our team members provided to our customers in Islip, Ithaca and Toledo, and are working closely with them during this time. We’ll proactively reach out to customers scheduled to travel after this date to offer alternate arrangements”, a company’s representative declared.

As global travel demand has considerably increased following the Covid-19 pandemic, while reaching an estimated record of 2.44 million travellers transiting airports last Friday, airlines have struggled to keep up with operations due to low numbers of employees and higher service prices. As a result, thousands of flights were cancelled or delayed worldwide so far.

Big industry names such as Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines were forced to cut hundreds of flights during this summer due to “record amount” of overtime pilots are currently working in an attempt to reduce disruption.

In addition to ending operations to the three aforementioned cities, American Airlines is also significantly changing its schedule for eight more routes in order to cope with the raising travel demand. Moreover, regional carriers owned by the company, such as PSA Airlines, Envoy Air and Piedmont Airlines, have recently requested “significant pay increases” for pilots, the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) announced.

“The new PSA agreements will not only help PSA hire and retain quality pilots, but will set the standard for other regional carriers to follow suit,” concluded John Ebbert, chair of the ALPA’s PSA pilot group.

The salary raises are expected to be as high as 50 percent for the next couple of years.

 

source: thehill.com