The Most Important Story in Airlines in 2022
Photo Credit: Travelers spent a lot of time waiting in queues or for delayed flights in 2022. Flickr / Jill /Blue Moonbeam Studio
Skift Take
We learned this year that air travel truly is a team sport that's only as strong as its weakest member.
In hindsight, we should have known the mess that was air travel in 2022 was coming. Airlines kicked off the year canceling tens of thousands of flights amid the surge in Omicron variant cases that kept crews at home, and travelers — unfortunately — on the ground.
“The environment we’re navigating is among the most difficult we’ve faced,” Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian told staff in a memo on New Year’s Day 2022.
Despite that warning, many in the industry — this reporter included — believed that most of the issues would be righted by summer. Yes, the U.S. pilot shortage would mean fewer flights than in 2019, particularly to smaller cities. And other constraints, like the availability of new aircraft, could also pose some limits. Airlines were not expected to make a full recovery but they were forecast to get close.
That, as we now know, did not happen. It turns out that spinning back up a complex, gl
