DETROIT – Delta Air Lines canceled about 100 flights on Sunday due to staff shortages, opening center seats a month earlier than expected to accommodate more passengers.
The airline says it has had more than 1 million passengers in recent days, the highest number since before the coronavirus pandemic started last year.
“We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience, and the majority have been rebooked for the same travel day,” the airline said in a statement on Sunday.
Delta DAL,
measures taken to increase passenger capacity, including opening center seats on Sundays and Mondays, in an effort to accommodate passengers.
On Wednesday, the airline announced that it will stop blocking middle seats from May. The move was made last April to further separate passengers, a policy the Delta CEO had repeatedly mentioned to build confidence in the airline. The seats would be reopened as air travel recovers and more people are vaccinated against COVID-19, the airline said.
Delta said the center seats are only open for Sundays and Mondays and the lockout policy has not changed. Where necessary, seats could be unblocked to take customers to their destination on the same day.
“Delta teams have endured several factors, including personnel, large numbers of workers’ vaccinations and pilots returning to work,” the airline said in the statement. Some workers experienced adverse side effects from vaccination.
On Sunday, websites at three Delta hubs showed 33 canceled arriving or departing flights. There were 19 at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, an additional 11 at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, and three more at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport.
Delta said Wednesday that nearly 65% of people who flew with Delta last year expect to have received at least one dose of the new vaccines by May 1.
The aviation industry was divided on the usefulness of blocking center seats to reduce the risk of COVID-19 spreading during a flight. Airlines including Delta, Southwest LUV,
Alaska ALK,
and JetBlue JBLU,
months of limited seating, while United Airlines UAL,
never did and American AAL,
did this only briefly.
Social distancing is difficult, if not impossible on an airplane, even when the middle seats are empty – a point United CEO Scott Kirby often made to explain his airline’s resistance to seat blocking.
Air travel in the United States is recovering from pandemic lows. More than 1 million travelers have each passed through US airports in the past 20 days, although traffic in March is nearly half that of the same month in 2019.
The number is increasing towards the crucial summer holiday season. Last summer was a disaster for the airlines, contributing to Delta losses of more than $ 12 billion over the year. The airlines want to increase their revenues as quickly as possible, and that means they have to sell more seats.