The Association of Flight Attendants, which represents the airline's cabin crews, said it complained about wait times of more than three hours for workers who called a crew scheduling center that had "limited telephone lines and personnel." The union told flight attendants near the end of their shifts to tell supervisors and find a hotel room. United could be contributing to its struggles. "We estimate that over 150,000 customers on United alone were impacted this weekend because of FAA staffing issues and their ability to manage traffic," Kirby wrote in a memo to employees Tuesday night. United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby blamed a shortage of federal air traffic controllers for massive disruptions last weekend at its Newark hub. They saw other people looking for unaccompanied minors and heard about stranded travelers who spent hours in line or slept at the airport. Margo said a United agent wouldn't let them retrieve their bags either – they would have to pick those up at their final destination, New Orleans - then "made me feel like an idiot" for leaving needed medical supplies in a checked bag. When their United flight in Newark was canceled Sunday night, Margo and Jason Osborne searched for other flights but couldn't find one. Some swore they would never fly again on whichever airline had done them wrong. People whose travel plans were disrupted took to social media to vent against the airlines.
The FAA was expecting about 48,000 flights on Tuesday, rising on Wednesday and peaking at more than 52,500 on Thursday, which figures to be the biggest travel day of the holiday period. United Airlines, with a major hub in Newark, New Jersey, canceled about 500 flights or 18% of its schedule, and JetBlue canceled 16% of its flights, according to FlightAware. By evening on the East Coast, about 6,500 flights had been delayed and about 1,900 canceled.
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