Why Your Flight Out of Stewart Airport Could Be Suddenly Canceled

You might want to check your flight status.

As COVID-19 restrictions are lifted all across the country, even here in New York, travel is resuming. One of the biggest forms of travel we are seeing an increase in, compared to 2020, is air travel. From personal experience, I can even tell you that I wasn't willing to fly last year. But this year, I have a flight booked for July. With travel increasing, airlines are having to re-hire staff that was previously laid off.

But as we "return to normal" and people get back to work, not everyone is willing to go back to work under the same circumstances as before. One of the major industries that are affected by this is the airline industry. Now, the staffing shortage is causing airlines to cancel flights, and it could cause yours to be canceled too.

According to CNN, American Airlines has canceled hundreds of flights for this summer due to a labor shortage and unprecedented weather. American Airlines is expecting 50 to 80 flight cancelations per day. Over this past weekend, American Airlines canceled over 400 flights. American Airlines is one of the major airlines that flies out of Stewart Airport in Newburgh, New York.

CNN reports that customers who have booked through July 15 and had their flight canceled have already been notified. It also flies out of Westchester County JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark Airport. At this time it is unclear how local airports have been affected.

In March 2020, American Airlines received $5.8 billion from the federal government to save jobs as the COVID-19 pandemic paralyzed the airline industry. In July 2020, American Airlines announced they had planned for 19,000 layoffs to take place in October, according to ABC7 Chicago. Then, American Airlines was set to lay off over 13,000 employees earlier this year, according to Bloomberg. However, these layoffs were called off once the most recent relief bill was passed in March 2021.