Delta, don't fail your employees and loyal flyers like me this Fourth of July

Ahead of the July Fourth weekend rush, hundreds of Delta Air Lines pilots plan to picket on Thursday to demand better pay and more reasonable schedules amid an increase in flight cancellations and delays.

As a loyal Delta customer, I have always supported the airline and applauded its great service, but Delta’s willingness to compromise its staff’s needs in order to accommodate its flight schedule is unacceptable.

Delta pilots are overworked and overlooked. The Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA), Delta pilots’ union, penned a letter to customers on June 16 stating that they have been flying a record amount of overtime to accommodate the overwhelming flight schedule. Pilots said they have been cautioning Delta for months to "exercise restraint when adding back flights.”

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“It gives us no pleasure to tell management, ‘We told you so',” Delta Capt. Jason Ambrosi, an ALPA leader, said in the June 16 news release. “Pilots are mission-oriented and want to deliver industry-leading operational performance. We’ve picked up record amounts of overtime to help Delta during the recovery.”

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Airlines around the globe have struggled to match the increase in travel demand, which has outpaced pre-pandemic levels in 2019. When the pandemic hit in 2020, many airlines downsized its staff, which helped the industry stay afloat. But now, airlines are struggling to bounce back.

Overworking pilots to accommodate all its flights not only puts strain on its staff but also greatly inconveniences its customers due to the increased risk of cancellation.

Two weeks ago, my Delta flight from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to New York's LaGuardia got canceled. I was not able to get on another flight, but my checked-in bags ended up being flown to LGA on another flight. It took hours of waiting in the customer service line before managing to redirect the bags back to Atlanta.

Thankfully, my plans in New York were flexible and I could rebook my flight for a couple of weeks later, but many customers do not have that kind of luxury. And it is certainly much less likely they have this luxury during the July Fourth weekend.

'Holiday plans ruined'

“The perfect storm is occurring. Demand is back and pilots are flying record amounts of overtime but are still seeing our customers being stranded and their holiday plans ruined,” Ambrosi said in a Monday news release. “Unfortunately, these problems have not led to any greater urgency from management to resolve our issues at the negotiating table.”

In response to Thursday's planned picket, a Delta spokesperson told CBS MoneyWatch that Delta's goal remains to "continue providing Delta pilots with an industry-leading overall contract with the best compensation based on pay, retirement, work rules and profit sharing."

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While Delta announced last month that it would cancel 100 daily flights from July 1 to Aug. 7 due to travel demand, it remains to be seen whether it can still keep up with the summer travel surge. Based on the past couple of months, I am dubious.

About 2,800 U.S. flights were canceled and more than 20,000 were delayed industrywide on Memorial Day weekend, with Delta taking the biggest hit, according to tracking website FlightAware.

On Monday, at least 800 flights were canceled in the United States, including 224 from Delta (7% of its operations). United and American Airlines also canceled 128 and 67 flights, respectively.

It is true that external factors such as adverse weather, the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic hit from the war in Ukraine have impacted airlines' ability to meet travel demands.

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And Delta has tried to take steps to mitigate the negative effects on its customers, such as the waiver letting customers rebook a flight this July Fourth weekend without any fees. But this is not the solution – not when Delta pilots are estimated to have flown more annual overtime by this fall than in all of 2018 and 2019 combined, according to the union’s letter.

This month, ALPA leadership passed a vote of "no confidence" in Delta’s management of flight crews and flight training, and though Congress gave the airline industry more than $50 billion in pandemic relief to ensure it would be prepared for the return of travelers, it is hard to see the effects of that money anywhere.

"Airline executives are now attempting to distract the public by blaming their failures on others," Capt. Joseph G. DePete, president of ALPA, wrote in a column for USA TODAY. "The truth is they have no one to blame but themselves."

While fewer flights likely mean higher ticket prices, more options to fly should not be at the cost of stretching pilots thin to a breaking point. For the sake of both its customers and its employees, Delta needs to stop cutting corners and prioritize fixing its staffing crisis for a longer-term solution.

Ashley Ahn is an opinion intern for USA TODAY. She previously covered the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines for CNN’s health and medical unit and the trial of Ahmaud Arbery’s killers for CNN’s Atlanta News Bureau. Contact her at aahn@usatoday.com or on Twitter:  @ashleyahn88

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Delta pilots picket just before July 4th weekend, canceled flights