JetBlue will have to cut flights from New York by up to 10% this summer due to a shortage of air traffic controllers, the airline said Tuesday.
A measure taken after the Federal Aviation Administration asked airlines in late March to cut flights from Kennedy and LaGuardia airports in New York, Newark Liberty in New Jersey and other terminals to avoid travel disruptions.
“Obviously we’re very concerned about New York for the summer,” airline president Joanna Geraghty said Tuesday. “The FAA continues to have a significant personnel shortage. It’s an ongoing problem and frankly it’s only getting worse this summer.”
For spring and summer, company CEO Robin Hayes told CNBC on Tuesday that international and domestic demand is expected to be strong compared to last year, when traffic started after the impact of the pandemic. However, he noted that while the New York area is the airline’s biggest market, it has had to cut back and forth flights for the summer because the FAA is understaffed. A challenge in this whole part of the country, he added.
Hayes also noted last month that the latest decision is particularly shocking for New York-based JetBlue, as the vast majority of its flights take off or land in the city or pass through its airspace.
“We have staff, we’ve already trained the pilots, we’re paying the pilots, we’ve bought planes, we’re paying for gates and slots,” Hayes said at the time. “This is going to have a very significant financial impact on JetBlue and our customers.”
Flight cancellations and delays have increased during the peak hours of 2022, and airlines have cut their schedules to give more slack to the system. If the weather is bad or there are other challenges, disruptions tend to kick in if airlines have packed their schedules with too many flights.
Due to staffing shortages, the FDA released a new plan to help prevent a repeat of flight disruptions in 2022, reducing flight requirements by up to 10% for airline takeoff and landing rights, in order to avoid traffic jams in New York and Washington DC.
The exemptions will last from May 15 to September 15.
Many fear that the reduction in flights will lead to increasingly expensive tickets.