American Airlines braces for record 75 million summer travelers
American Airlines said its biggest summer schedule will carry 75 million customers, with Friday, May 22, the Memorial Day weekend’s busiest day.
Behind the packed gates and full cabins, American Airlines spent the offseason trying to keep travelers from feeling the strain of the busiest weeks ahead. The carrier said its summer travel period runs from May 21 through Sept. 8, and it expects to carry 75 million customers on 750,000 flights, its largest summer schedule to date and a new company record that would top 2019.
The Memorial Day rush was already underway. American said more than 4.2 million customers were scheduled across more than 40,000 flights from May 21 through May 26, with Friday, May 22, marked as the busiest day of the holiday weekend. At the same time, the Transportation Security Administration said it expected to screen 18.3 million passengers and crew at U.S. airports from May 21 through May 27, a sign that Memorial Day has become the opening stretch of a long summer test for airlines, airports and travelers alike. AAA estimated that 45 million Americans would travel at least 50 miles from home over the holiday.
American said it prepared for the surge with offseason preventive maintenance, work to ready facilities for summer heat and staffing increases in key locations. The airline has also been trying to smooth out the parts of the operation that passengers notice most: delays, missed connections and gate changes. At Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, American said a redesigned 13-bank schedule has reduced delays, customer misconnects and gate changes. At Philadelphia International Airport, a redesigned afternoon transatlantic schedule has improved options, reduced congestion and improved on-time performance.
The airline said the operational changes are already showing up in the numbers. American reported the best block performance among major U.S. carriers in April, a measure that reflects how closely flights match scheduled departure-to-arrival times. It also reported record first-quarter revenue of $13.9 billion and said demand remained strong heading into the second quarter, even as travelers face higher prices for airfare, gas and other vacation costs.
Chief Operating Officer David Seymour said the company’s more than 130,000 team members had built an operation that is “reliable, resilient and ready for peak summer demand.” The real test now is whether those staffing, scheduling and maintenance changes can keep the biggest travel season of the year moving without the bottlenecks that have frustrated passengers in past summers.
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