American Airlines cuts November schedule to avoid disruption

August 15 (Reuters) – American Airlines Inc. AAL.O cut thousands of domestic and international flights from its November schedule as part of the carrier’s efforts to reduce the disruptions that have plagued the industry this year.

The carrier has scheduled 31,000 fewer flights, or 16%, for the month that contains the busy Thanksgiving holiday travel period, according to data from aviation analysis firm Cirium.

American airlines have tried to add more buffer to their schedules after a chaotic summer season. As demand for air travel has increased this year, most US airlines have struggled to meet it due to staff shortages.

American said in an emailed statement that the reductions reflected network planning and schedules throughout the year.

“Preliminary schedules are released 331 days in advance and then adjustments are made closer to the schedule we intend to operate,” the airline said.

“We now load calendar adjustments approximately 100 days in advance, which is how we adjusted our calendar in 2019 before the pandemic.”

The Texas-based carrier, which has already cut more than 19,000 flights this year, expects capacity in the current quarter to be down about 8% to 10% from pre-pandemic levels. .

Flight cancellations and delays by US airlines in the first seven months of the year exceeded the comparable period in 2019, according to data from flight tracking website FlightAware.

(Reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh in Chicago and Aishwarya Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni)

((Aishwarya.Nair@thomsonreuters.com; +91-8067494421;))

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