READ THIS NEXT: Delta Won’t Let You Do This on Flights, Effective Immediately. Thanks to a major industry-wide staffing shortage, airlines have resorted to dropping departures from their schedule to avoid cascading delays and cancellations—especially for the upcoming fall and winter travel seasons. For example, on Aug. 9, American Airlines confirmed that it had cut 28,807 flights from its November schedule in a move that will affect 15 cities across 11 routes, representing a 12.6 percent reduction in flights from the carrier’s originally planned departures, Simple Flying reported. Miami (MIA), was the most affected, with flights cut from the Florida city to Des Moines (DSM), Grand Rapids (GRRR), Madison (MSN), Managua (MGA), Milwaukee (MKE), Minneapolis (MSP), Oklahoma City (OKC), and Samana (AZS). In addition, the carrier also cut routes from Boston (BOS) to Providenciales (PLS), Charlotte (CLT) to Puerto Vallarta (PVR), and St. Louis (STL) to Cancún (CUN), and drastically reduced the number of flights on several other legs. On Aug. 8, Delta announced schedule cuts of its own after uploaded schedule data showed it was axing flights between six cities, The Points Guy reported. Starting on Sept. 11, the airline will drop service between its midwestern hub in Detroit (DTW) and Allentown, Pennsylvania (ABE). The carrier will then cut its routes between Detroit and Cedar Rapids, Iowa (CID); Dayton, Ohio (DAY); and Fort Wayne, Indiana (FWA) and ax its flights between Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) and Moline, Illinois (MLI) starting on Oct. 5. Frontier Airlines also announced a new schedule on Aug. 2 that showed it was making major changes to its fall flights by cutting more than 4,000 flights, Simple Flying reported. The changes will affect 32 domestic routes—84 percent of which involve service to and from Florida—and 11 international routes servicing Cancún from the U.S. Now, yet another major carrier is following suit. On Aug. 13, JetBlue Airways confirmed that it would be dropping 37 routes from its network, ultimately affecting flights between 33 cities the company services, The Points Guy reports. The changes will drastically affect Newark (EWR) as the carrier drops flights to and from Aguadilla (BQN) in Puerto Rico, Aruba (AUA), Atlanta (ATL), Austin (AUS), Charleston (CHS), Jacksonville (JAX), Las Vegas (LAS), Montego Bay (MBJ), Nassau (NAS), Phoenix (PHX), Providenciales, Puerto Plata (POP), Raleigh-Durham (RDU), San Diego (SAN), San Francisco (SFO), St. Lucia (UVF), and St. Maarten (SXM). Fort Lauderdale (FLL) will also see a significant reduction, losing its routes with Aruba, Cartagena (CTG), Chicago (ORD), Cleveland (CLE), Grand Cayman (GCM), Philadelphia (PHL), Phoenix, Providenciales, Port of Spain (POS), Portland (PDX), Seattle (SEA), and St. Maarten. The remaining dropped routes include Hartford (BDL) to Cancun (CUN), Las Vegas, and San Francisco; and Los Angeles (LAX) to Austin, Jacksonville, Raleigh-Durham, Richmond (RIC), and San Jose, Costa Rica (SJO), per The Points Guy. RELATED: For more up-to-date information, sign up for our daily newsletter.
According to The Points Guy, many of the affected JetBlue flights were previously suspended and had been slated to restart during the coming months. However, the company confirmed that it had made the changes to reduce the likelihood of delays or cancellations. “To ensure continued operational reliability, we’re planning a schedule change for this fall and into 2023 that will extend some of the market suspensions we put in place earlier this year,” representatives for the airline said in s statement obtained by The Points Guy. “This summer has been more resilient because of the capacity pulldowns we put in place, and we believe it’s prudent to plan similarly for next year. We’re getting ahead of it now to ease pressure on our Customer Support team and to offer more time for rebooking our customers. These suspensions are primarily in markets and airports that are especially challenging from an operational or ATC perspective.” Customers who purchased flights on the now-canceled routes will either receive a full refund or be rebooked through other legs, JetBlue said. News of the flight cuts comes just weeks after JetBlue beat out Frontier Airlines in a bid to acquire ultra-low-budget carrier Spirit Airlines. If approved by federal regulators, the deal would make JetBlue the fifth largest airline in the U.S., which the company says will allow it to expand its route network with more flights in the coming months, The Points Guy reports. Recently, the carrier announced that it would soon be adding a second European destination to its network and beefing up its schedule in Boston, New York, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, and Los Angeles.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb “It’ll be announced in the next couple of months,” Robin Hayes, CEO of JetBlue, recently told The Points Guy of the carrier’s forthcoming transatlantic destination. “Because you’ve got to give people notice to book it.”