If Memorial Day weekend was a test for the strained airline industry heading into the summer, it passed with high marks — much to the pleasure of travelers.
During one of the most popular weekends for travelers heading into summer, the Transportation Security Administration screened nearly 9.8 million travelers at U.S. airports nationwide. There were only 605 flights canceled across the country over the five-day weekend including Thursday, despite nearly 128,000 flights across the system, according to trade group Airlines for America.
The government airport screening agency screened about 300,000 more people than during the same holiday weekend in 2019. Friday’s final volume of about 2.74 million was the agency’s busiest day since 2020. AAA Texas projected 3.5 million Texans would travel 50 miles or more from home, a 7% percent increase over 2022.
It was a great weekend for D-FW carriers American and Southwest, too.
Fort Worth-based American Airlines said that this year it had it’s “best-ever” operating performance for the holiday weekend. American anticipates it will carry roughly 52 million passengers this summer.
American canceled 34 flights with all but one tied to weather and airfield limitations in Norfolk, Va., where bad weather made flying unsafe. The carrier’s mainline operation ranked first among its competitors in the completion factor, or the number of planes that arrive at some point at their destination, American said.
In 2023, American scheduled 26,565 flights over Memorial Day weekend. That’s just a little under 2019, when the carrier scheduled 31,514 flights for the same 5-day holiday weekend. That’s because the airline industry is still facing a shortage of pilots and even aircraft, issues that are bumping up against record demand for travel and high airfares.
DFW International Airport, the second busiest airport in the world, projected a total of 1.1 million travelers to use the airport during the five-day holiday travel period from Friday to Tuesday. The airport said that’s an increase of 1.7% from the same period in 2019. The peak travel day was Friday, with an estimated 235,000 passengers, the airport reported.
Between Friday to Monday of Memorial Day weekend, Dallas-based Southwest Airlines served more than two million customers. To prepare for summer, Southwest has brought its network planning and operations under one leader, which leaders have said that they hope will align daily operations with its commercial capacity.
This year, Southwest scheduled 19,725 flights over Memorial Day weekend. In 2019, the carrier had scheduled 18,296 for the same weekend.
It’s also created a summer preparedness forum of operational experts and leaders to support the summer’s peak schedule. Southwest hired over 5,700 new employees through the end of April. The carrier said it has 7% more flights scheduled than during the same holiday weekend in 2022, but has 15% more employees.
“Number one is come into the summer as prepared as possible,” Bob Jordan, CEO of Southwest Airlines told The Dallas Morning News in April. “The number one thing is have the right staffing levels. We’ve ensured that we have the right ramp staff, the number of pilots matches the aircraft we can fly. We’re really in good shape with our flight attendants.”
At Dallas Love Field, Friday to Monday bookings indicated approximately 118,000 passengers departing and transferring from the airport and 74,000 passengers arriving.
The summer travel season this year is anticipated to be one of the busiest yet coming out of the pandemic, which halted travel to certain international destinations and set COVID-related restrictions.
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