How Travel Stakeholders are Tackling Air Disruptions

Last year's holiday season was not a particularly good one for U.S. airline operations. Between Dec. 20, 2022, and Jan. 4, 2023, the six largest U.S. carriers in total canceled nearly 23,500 flights—a rate of 10.7 percent, according to data from FlightAware. There also were more than 73,600 delayed flights for a rate of 37.7 percent, with an average delay time of 63 minutes.

Over the same period a year prior, the six carriers canceled a bit more than 10,100 flights—a rate of 5.2 percent—and had about 60,000 delays, or just more than 32 percent, with an average delay time of 47 minutes.

Weather in December 2022 was a significant factor, with Southwest Airlines famously facing days of disruptions that started with snow and ended with system processes being called into question. The U.S. Department of Transportation investigated the carrier, and last week penalized it $140 million—although most of that amount is being covered by credits and offsets.

But weather is just one disruption factor and can hit at any time. Though airlines have touted their efforts to beef up their staffs the past two years, some still point to what they consider a pilot shortage. 

There also remains a ground crew shortage at airports. IATA reported in May that a recent survey it conducted showed that 37 percent of ground handling professionals anticipated staffing shortages until the end of 2023 and beyond, and 60 percent felt they didn't have enough qualified staff to ensure smooth operations. 

Further, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is struggling to restaff air traffic controller positions. In September, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced the Air Traffic Controllers Hiring Act of 2023, which would require the FAA to "conduct maximum hiring" of controllers, which works out to about 1,800 individuals per year.

Doing so, however, likely depends on the FAA receiving full congressional reauthorization and funding before another potential government shutdown. At the U.S. Travel Association Future of Travel Mobility conference on Nov. 15 in Washington, D.C., JetBlue president and chief operating officer Joanna Geraghty said she had recently learned that "a one-week shutdown holds ATC training back for a month" and "a one-month shutdown holds back ATC training for a year."

The U.S. Senate last week passed a second FAA extension, though it's good only through March 8, 2024. 

(There also was the Dec. 2 New York Times' scathing report on the burnout and poor conditions controllers face.)

Disruptions Affecting Business Travel

Business travelers are feeling the effects of these delays and cancellations. A whopping 84 percent of those traveling in 2023 for work in the United States surveyed this autumn by global travel management platform TravelPerk said they were affected by disruptions during business trips. About 25 percent had reservations canceled, with 40 percent experiencing delays of more than one hour, they said. 

Similarly, BTN's 2023 Airline Survey & Report, published in November found that nearly 83 percent of surveyed travel managers said that airline and airport disruptions "significantly" or "somewhat" negatively impacted their company's return to travel this past year.

Findings in an October survey by the Global Business Travel Association paint a less drastic picture. About 44 percent of buyers said travel disruptions were a significant barrier, with 32 percent of suppliers agreeing. Overall, though, respondents said travel disruptions had a slight to moderate effect on their employees' willingness to travel for business, with 11 percent of non-executive employees and 10 percent of executive employees reporting being "greatly" affected.

In response to the disruptions, about 30 percent of U.S. business travelers are extending their trips to stay overnight, ensuring they get to where they need to be on time, according to TravelPerk. In addition, 37 percent of workers have considered different modes of transport, such as driving or taking the train, even if doing so takes longer. 

Airlines, airports and the federal government have taken steps to try to mitigate disruptions for the winter season, defined by the International Air Transport Association as the period from the last Saturday in October through the last Saturday in March. Here's a look at some of the actions taken, including one product from the business travel segment.   

U.S. Government Response

Much has been reported about the shortage of air traffic controllers and disgruntled customers. U.S. government agencies are taking steps to address the situation.

The FAA on Dec. 20 created a three-person panel of "fatigue experts" to identify new ways to tackle ATC fatigue. The panel will examine how the latest science of sleep needs and fatigue considerations can be applied to controller work requirements and scheduling. The work will begin in January and is expected to conclude six weeks later.

In October the FAA awarded nearly $57.6 million in grants to 47 airports in 23 states so they would be "better prepared to keep airport operations running safely and smoothly." About $17.7 million was for snow-removal equipment, $27.6 million for deicing facilities, and $12.2 million for the construction and renovation of buildings that house and maintain such equipment.

After an August New York Times report on close calls at airports, the FAA invested an additional $121 million for projects at eight airports across the country to reduce the chances of their happening. The projects include reconfiguring taxiways, installing new lighting systems and providing more flexibility on the airfield, according to the FAA. Prior to the report, the agency had invested more than $100 million to 12 airports to also reduce runway incursions.

DOT is getting in on the action, too. In May, it announced plans to propose a rulemaking aimed at requiring airlines to provide compensation and cover expenses for amenities such as meals, hotels, ground transport to and from hotels, and rebooking for controllable delays or cancellations. The notice of proposed rulemaking for this rule currently is scheduled for April 29, 2024. 

Airline Responses

Southwest Airlines arguably has taken the most dramatic steps over the past year to better prepare for possible winter disruptions as a result of its challenges a year ago. 

To wit: The carrier has added 30 deicing trucks, including five closed-cab trucks each at Denver, Chicago Midway and Nashville, according to an airline spokesperson. It has purchased 16 high-powered heaters spread across 10 stations, including three at Denver and three at Midway. There are three addition deicing pads, for a total of six, at Midway, with an additional four in Denver for a total of 10. Southwest also trained more than 2,700 employees across the system for deicing. 

"We've been focused on how we can make the operation more resilient and more productive throughout the year and get ready for the new year," Southwest COO Andrew Watterson said during a Dec. 8 webinar for corporate customers. "We must plan for weather that is outside the norm. So, we went back to all of our stations to understand what is required to operate in winter weather. … That allowed us to have a throughput to handle events outside our norms." The result, he said, was that Southwest is "ready for winter."

Additionally, the carrier reports it has enhanced collaboration across teams and improved tools and procedures to streamline communications and decision-making, and accelerated investments in its tools and technology that can help the carrier recover operations more quickly during extreme weather and beyond, including upgrading crew software and the phone system call capacity. 

American Airlines has developed technology that "keeps customers moving when severe weather impacts our larger hubs." The Hub Efficiency Analytics Tool—HEAT—"dynamically moves our flight schedules around" to ensure operations keep moving when weather threatens to disrupt schedules, according to the carrier. 

The tool optimizes data about weather, load factors, customer connections, gate availability, and any air traffic control or crew constraints. An algorithm weighs the data and shifts arrivals and departures around at the hub. Since it was deployed in 2022, "HEAT has prevented nearly 1,000 flight cancellations across our network," according to the carrier. 

United Airlines has focused on its mobile app to help travelers through disruptions. In June, the carrier launched features that automatically present personalized rebooking options, bag tracking information and meal and hotel vouchers when eligible if a flight is delayed or canceled. 

There's also on-demand customer support via United's "Agent on Demand" feature. A customer can scan a QR code or use the app to video chat, text or call customer service instead of waiting in line. As of Nov. 14, more than 1.5 million customers had used the service to get real-time flight status, upgrade and standby lists, seat assignments and irregular operation assistance, according to United.

In addition, United has 150 deicing trucks "ready to deploy this holiday season."

Delta Air Lines directed BTN to online resources that encouraged customers to use its app for real-time flight information. The carrier also in September detailed its meteorology team's work on forecasts that are updated every six hours and used by station managers. "These forecasts inform decisions about everything from flight paths to staffing," according to Delta.

Industry Response

In addition to receiving support from the federal government for infrastructure and equipment, airports themselves are making investments in their processes to improve operations. IATA prioritizes airport staff recruitment and retention, including training, the implementation of global standards and the acceleration of digitalization and automation. 

For the third priority, airports can implement new tools that provide predictive data. One such airport management solution is AeroCloud, with offices in the United Kingdom and United States. The company's solution, launched in 2019, currently is deployed by nearly 60 airports in North America, Europe and the U.K., and processes over 200 million passengers annually.

"One of the biggest problems is, airlines and airports have not shared valuable data across platforms," AeroCloud co-founder and CEO George Richardson said. "What companies like AeroCloud are doing is, we are trying to break down the barrier of siloed data between airline and airport, and we also are using [artificial intelligence] to predict data on behalf of the airport on what is missing in the dataset aggregate. We use AI to populate the fields of data on passenger movement that we don't get from solutions that are present in the airport."

The Tampa and Sarasota-Bradenton airports in Florida use AeroCloud, and Richardson cited hurricane season as an example. He said company has enough data to which inbound and outbound flights will be affected by weather-related disruptions. The company also collects data about how travelers return to their originally scheduled destinations once they are diverted—and the accumulation of all that data provides a measure of predictability for airport operations. 

"We now have a recording system and an ability to look back in history and also season the plan with regards to sandboxing about schedule service that is coming in that we already know about that might well be affected by diverting inbound or diverting outbound," Richardson said.

That said, there still isn't much that travelers, let alone travel managers, can do to mitigate air delays and cancellations. One corporate travel industry supplier, however, has created a tool for airlines that it says could help make the disruption process go more smoothly for impacted travelers.

HRS nearly two years ago introduced its Crew & Passenger Solutions product, which provides a single mobile platform for airline partners that reaches out to the carriers’ disrupted travelers with personalized pre-arranged travel packages, supplier-designated virtual payment for lodging options and transfers, and instant reimbursement for meals and services, according to the company.

Multiple airlines since have signed up for the service, including Lufthansa and Norwegian. HRS expects additional "prominent" carriers to be announced during the first quarter of the new year. 

"Historically, these kinds of disruptive events were being treated as emergency cases. Now they are part of the new reality," HRS Crew & Passenger Solutions CEO Luca De Angelis told BTN. "Accordingly, we need to create new customer journeys that already allocate for potential disruption … [which] should be part of the same regular daily workflow for airports and airlines. Cancellations and irregularities should not be surprising anymore."

In one instance, a delayed Norwegian flight arrived into Oslo late, at 1 a.m. One hundred passengers who were rebooked to the next day because of missed connections were informed about HRS's self-service solution available at their destination as soon as the delay was known. Seventy-five percent of passengers were able to select an overnight stay prior to the actual departure of the delayed flight, with others using the service after landing.

"The very big change is they shifted 92 percent of their passengers that were queuing up to completely online," De Angelis said. "Norwegian now handles the vast majority of its disrupted passengers online with the self-service solution."

HRS has extended a similar platform the corporate space for joint customers of HRS and participating airlines. 

"Let's consider a scenario with Lufthansa and a global corporation with significant volume on that carrier," he added. "Our solution will give airlines the capability to create personalized options in disruption scenarios that go out to a single corporate traveler of that company. Traditionally, we see airlines basing loyalty status on airline-defined passenger trip volume and/or spend tiers. We're giving airlines a new category to put the business travelers of select companies into, creating loyalty tiers based on the airline-corporation relationship. … For example, if you are from the Siemens Corp., you'll get a different set of personalized options in a disruption scenario, with these coming to your phone as a cobranded service."