Flights across the US are getting back on schedule following weeks of widespread delays.
While the exact cause of the bottlenecks has been difficult to pinpoint, the holiday weekend exacerbated the problem with FlightAware tracking more than 32,000 delays on 05JUL, in addition to some 2,000 flight cancellations. The problem bled into Tuesday which saw 7,403 delays.
At time of publication, today is tracking at just over 1,000 delays.
An ABC News report attributed some of the chaos to problems with the fuelling system at Boston Logan International Airport, which caused a ground stop for several hours on Sunday night.
However, the Washington Post attributed weekend disruptions to higher-than-usual holiday air traffic. Other outlets have pointed to massive storm systems that swept through the country’s East Coast and Midwest as the culprit.
The New York Post reports that heavy airspace restrictions in place for America’s 250th Independence Day celebrations in DC further compounded problems. Major hubs like Newark Liberty, LaGuardia, and JFK saw the worst of the delays, according to the publication.
According to the online flight-tracking site TravelTourister, today marks the 99th day of excessive flight disruption in the US, with 424 cancellations and 2,785 delays recorded across a dozen states, an issue that many in the industry link to recent budget cuts and layoffs at the US Federal Aviation Administration.
Despite the disruptions, the FAA took to social media to note that more than 300,000 flights took off uninterrupted over the July Fourth weekend.
