Travel forecast: Summer air travel hell could give way to ‘optimal’ fall

(CNN) — Summer air travel has been trying, to put it mildly. Hellacious, many travelers would say.

About 55,000 flights have been canceled in the US since the Friday before Memorial Day, according to data from flight tracking site FlightAware, and nearly a quarter of US flights have been delayed this summer.

A “huge problem with staffing shortages” has plagued air travel this season and all of 2022 so far, said Kathleen Bangs, a former airline pilot and a spokesperson for FlightAware.

Bangs is inclined to give the airlines the benefit of the doubt in their efforts to ramp up pre-pandemic flight schedules with 2022 staffing challenges.

“I think they truly thought they would have enough employees return, and hire enough new ones, to meet the demand, but as we’ve all seen, they did not,” Bangs said.

Weather and air traffic controller staffing issues have added to the summer disruptions.

But some industry experts were cautiously optimistic about air travel this Labor Day holiday weekend, with predictions for a smoother fall and some better fares for travel in September and October.

Hopes for Labor Day weekend

Scott Keyes, the founder of flight deals and travel advice site Scott’s Cheap Flights, told CNN Travel recently that he expected less chaos over Labor Day.

“Looking back on the summer, you’ve had a couple of big holiday travel periods. You had Memorial Day when air travel went terribly. … And then you had July Fourth weekend, when there was minimal travel disruption,” Keyes said.

He predicted that Labor Day weekend would be closer to July Fourth. He anticipated fewer air travelers than Memorial Day, translating to less strain on the system and lower chances of a domino effect if weather or staffing were less than ideal.

According to travel app Hopper, 12.6 million passengers were scheduled to fly from US airports over the holiday weekend. Hopper predicted that Thursday and Friday would be the busiest days, with more crowds on Monday as travelers head home.

By Friday afternoon, about 150 flights had been canceled.