USA Flight Cancellations

[Vaughn]

I noticed on the news this evening that domestic flight cancellations are
way up, at least in June, and the trend is continuing....

Our daughter is scheduled to return to the USA in September, then switch
aircraft and fly into Charlotte domestically. Her aunt, my wife's sister, is
interviewing in Moscow soon for a tourist visa which we feel she'll get. Our
plan was to have her fly to the USA with our daughter acting as guide, and
they both would arrive here on the same domestic flight - and now I search
Travelocity and the domestic leg is nowhere to be found - meaning it's
booked full (I doubt it) or it's been cancelled? Time for us to call Delta.

BTW, a couple with whom we are good friends just departed for the FSU
on Monday. Charlotte - JFK - SVO. The weather here last Monday was
superb. Got an e-mail last night saying their New York flight was summarily
cancelled, and they ended up getting to Moscow through Germany, with
an extra 6 hour unplanned layover.

Vaughn

[wxman]

The problems with some airlines (namely NWA) created more flights without adding sufficient amount of pilots to cover. Pretty bad business planning. FAA only allows commercial pilots to fly a max of 100 hours per month, while the contract with NWA and pilots union is set at 80 hours. So NWA shortchanged themselves from the beginning. The pilots were allowed to work the extra 20 hours if they wanted, but the union told them to follow the contract to the letter, since they already took paycuts. NWA's motto has always been how to screw the workers and piss off the passengers. As far as total cancellations by the airlines in June, it was over 100,000, more than double from last June.

The good news is that once summer is over, the airlines go to a reduced schedule of flights and usually have a lot less cancellations. So after Labor Day, things should improve.