Customer service fireworks were popping for airlines in Hawaii and elsewhere this week as passengers suffered the consequences of airline technology breakdowns, flight delays and cancellations heading into the Fourth of July holiday period, which is expected to bring record-setting summertime passenger volumes.
Hundreds of thousands of people have seen their travel plans disrupted after a series of storms raked the Northeast last week, and frustrations are running high. Air travelers endured another wave of flight disruptions this week despite better weather along much of the East Coast, while United Airlines continued to account for the majority of canceled flights nationwide.
On Friday, thousands of flights were delayed or canceled, according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware.
Hawaiian Airlines, Hawaii’s biggest and longest-serving airline, was working Friday to accommodate passengers whose flight from Pago Pago, American Samoa, to Honolulu was delayed eight hours, causing some to miss connections and hassle with re-bookings or involuntary layovers.
Las Vegas-bound Veronica Faasavalu had to overnight in Honolulu after the Pago Pago flight delay. She was waiting patiently Friday for Hawaiian Airlines to assist her in re-booking her flight and provide her with a hotel room and food.
“I was supposed to go back to work tomorrow,” Faasavalu said. “The wait is frustrating. I really want to get to my hotel and take a shower. I’ve been traveling since around 7 p.m. Thursday night.”
Faasavalu’s flight was supposed to take off from Pago Pago at 11:20 p.m. Thursday and arrive in Honolulu at 5:50 a.m. Friday. However, it didn’t get to Honolulu until 1:43 p.m. Friday.
Hawaiian Airlines’ issue with the Pago Pago flight was on top of a two-hour systemwide service interruption Friday. A barrier temporarily appeared on the carrier’s website saying, “We are currently experiencing an issue with check-in on the web, mobile app, and kiosk. If you are not able to check in for your flight, please try again later or see an agent at the airport. We apologize for the inconvenience. Mahalo.”
Jayleen Faataualofa-Faoa, who was trying to get back to Seattle from Pago Pago, said she experienced problems Friday related to the delay as well as the technology issues.
Faataualofa-Faoa said Hawaiian’s technology issues Friday prevented her from accessing her Pualani Elite benefits, including priority boarding and baggage handling. She said she stood in long lines in Pago Pago and in Honolulu, where she was racing to get re-booked on a new Seattle-bound flight before precious cargo — a large bin of traditional frozen turkey tails from home — spoiled.
“It’s too much today,” Faataualofa-Faoa said, adding that she would likely fly Hawaiian again because it’s the only major airline serving Pago Pago International Airport.
Hawaiian Airlines spokesperson Alex Da Silva said the online check-in was temporarily unavailable Friday, “but services have been restored. We are fully staffed and will be deploying volunteers to airports over the holiday weekend to assist guests.”
Da Silva said Friday’s technology issues were not related to disruptions this spring caused by glitches in the airline’s new reservation system. Hawaiian Airlines made the transition to Amadeus’ Altea platform April 18-19 and then experienced significant booking problems for several days, when airport lobbies became crowded with passengers seeking help.
Hawaiian’s IT teams are looking into Friday’s disruption, Da Silva said, adding, “We are running a busy operation, but flights are largely operating as scheduled. We do encourage guests to set aside extra time to arrive at airports.”
The Transportation Security Administration anticipated that Friday would prove the peak travel day of the seven-day July Fourth holiday period. TSA said it expected to screen 2.8 million people Friday nationwide and approximately 17.7 million over the entire period.
“TSA is staffed and ready for the increasing travel volumes during this holiday travel period with the technologies and resources for improved security effectiveness, efficiency and passenger experience at security checkpoints,” said TSA Administrator David Pekoske.
Airline industry officials also have made investments. They said in the earlier part of the summer that carriers had fixed problems that contributed to a surge in flight cancellations and delays last summer, when 52,000 flights were nixed from June through August. Airlines have hired about 30,000 workers since then, including thousands of pilots, and they are using bigger planes to reduce flights but not the number of seats.
“I don’t have the hubris to tell you exactly how the summer is going to go, but we have prepared and we have a robust plan for it,” said Andrew Watterson, chief operating officer at Southwest Airlines, which struggled at times over the summer of 2022 and suffered an epic meltdown around Christmas, canceling nearly 17,000 flights.
David Seymour, chief operating officer of American Airlines, said his staff has fine-tuned a system it uses to predict the impact of storms on major airports and devise a plan for recovering from disruptions. He said it is reducing cancellations.
“It’s going to be a solid summer for us,” Seymour said.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says the government will hold airlines responsible to treat passengers fairly when the carriers cause cancellations or long delays. But just like the airlines, the Federal Aviation Administration — the agency that manages the nation’s air traffic — has had its own staffing shortages and occasional breakdowns of aging technology.
The FAA plans to hire 3,300 controllers over two years, but they won’t be ready to help this summer, much less this weekend.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
