Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says he's pushing airlines to hire more customer-service agents and take other steps to avoid travel woes this summer. Buttigieg wants the airlines to stress-test their schedules amid a spate of flight cancellations.
met with airline leaders to quiz them about widespread flight disruptions, his own flight was canceled and he wound up driving from Washington to New York.
Buttigieg said he is pushing the airlines to stress-test their summer schedules to ensure they can operate all theirwith the employees they have, and to add customer-service workers. That could put pressure on airlines to make additional cuts in their summer schedules. During Thursday’s virtual meeting, airline executives described steps they are taking to avoid a repeat of the Memorial Day weekend, when about 2,800 flights were canceled. “Now we’re going to see how those steps measure up,” Buttigieg said.at U.S. airports, coming within about 12,500 of breaking the pandemic-era high recorded on the Sunday after Thanksgiving last year.