Who is to blame for the summer of flight delays and cancellations?

Travelers walk through a terminal at Denver International Airport on July Fourth. “In my 37 years in the industry, I’ve never seen a summer like this,” said William McGee, a former airline operations manager and consumer advocate for the nonprofit American Economic Liberties Project. “It was so frustrating going around and around,” said Huntington Beach resident Sarah Huoh, who was stuck with her husband and two daughters for nearly 12 hours in Switzerland last week when their flight to London’s Heathrow Airport was canceled at the last minute. “On paper the numbers look good, but in practical applications we don’t have all the staff fully trained.” Southwest Airlines said that it has hired 10,000 employees in 2022 and that cancellation rates have dropped below 2019 and 2020 levels. The Air Line Pilots Assn., which represents 59,000 pilots from 35 U.S. and Canadian airlines, rebuffed the suggestion that a pilot shortage is causing the cancellations and delays, calling it a “narrative that many in the industry are using as a cover for profit-first business decisions.” More than 8,400 pilots were certified to fly in the 12 months leading up to June 2020 — 1,700 more than in 2019, according to the pilots association.