TAMPA, Fla. — In the wake of one of the worst travel days in the summer travel season, flight delays and cancellations are beginning to show up at Tampa International Airport.
As of this writing, there are 34 delays and 15 cancellations at the Tampa hub, according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware. American Airlines leads the pack with most cancellations, with nearly all others reporting a variety of slowdowns or scrubbed flights altogether.
There were a total of 155 delays and 23 cancelations on Thursday at Tampa International Airport.
The threat of thunderstorms disrupted airports across parts of the Northeast, with more than a third of all flights canceled at LaGuardia Airport and at least one-quarter of flights scrubbed at Newark Liberty airport, according to The Associated Press.
The outlet reports airlines are continuing to struggle with a shortage of pilots, which hampers their ability to fly all planned routes and schedules. Pilot unions at American, Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines complained that the companies were too slow to replace pilots who retired or took leaves of absence toward the start of the pandemic, the AP said.
More than 2.3 million passengers took to the sky on Thursday, according to the Transportation Security Administration. It's lower than the 2.7 million passengers tallied at checkpoints before the pandemic in 2019, but more people are expected in the coming weeks and months during the peak of summer travel.
The AP says it's expected this summer will surpass the pandemic-era passenger record of 2.45 million people that was set on the Sunday after Thanksgiving last year.