DALLAS — Travelers returning to Dallas after the Fourth of July weekend found an airline experience far improved from the one that offered many of them headaches and misery only a few days before.
DFW International Airport’s cancellations and delays this past Friday ranked it among the worst in the country that day. Airlines and union representatives blamed a combination of weather-related issues and airport staffing not in equilibrium with the number of post-pandemic passengers returning to the air.
Syed Jaffery and his wife Syeda Rizbi had much that same experience just a few weeks ago.
"It was cancellations. It was really stressful,” Jaffery said.
"A few weeks back it was my cousin's wedding and everyone's flight was cancelled,” Rizbi said. “Even the bride and groom were late for their own wedding."
But on July 5, as the couple returned on an early morning one-way Southwest Airlines flight from Burbank to Dallas Love Field, their experience was the exact opposite.
"It was smooth,” Rizbi said. “It was scheduled on time, it was a pretty good experience."
As of early afternoon, that trend was holding.
As of 2 p.m., only 5% of flights out of Love Field were delayed and there had been no cancellations. At DFW International Airport, 7% of flights were delayed and a total of seven had been cancelled.
"It was busy but it was pretty normal,” Riley Fitzpatrick said as she arrived home to Dallas from a weekend trip to Las Vegas.
"Yes. I'm glad,” Kristi Prigmore said of Flower Mound as she and her husband returned to Love Field from Memphis Monday morning. “The day after a holiday you always wonder how crazy it's going to be."
Monday, faced with a dramatic increase in the number of passenger complaints and unruly passenger investigations, The FAA released a short video online: children asking passengers to act more like adults while traveling.
"Fighting is not good when you're on a plane,” one boy says.
"They'll go to jail,” another one says.
This past weekend a passenger in Charlotte, North Carolina did go to jail after using the emergency exit row to get out of an American Airlines plane and onto the runway. The passenger was frustrated by a two hour delay and then 45 minutes in the plane on the tarmac before the flight was cancelled.
By later afternoon Monday, delays and cancellations were still much improved over last week: Love Field was at 9% of its outgoing flights delayed and still no cancellations. DFW Airport, as of 5:30 p.m., had recorded 139, or 14%, of flights delayed and a total of seven outgoing flights cancelled.