Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian has been updating the travel industry since hitting the pandemic.
About 100 Delta Air Lines flights were reportedly canceled on Sunday due to staff shortages.
“We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience, and the majority were booked for the same travel day,” the airline said in a statement Sunday.
Some employees have adverse side effects due to their COVID-19 vaccinations.
“Delta crews have worked through various factors, including personnel, a large number of employees’ vaccinations and pilots returning to active status,” the airline added in the statement.
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Air travel in the United States recovers from the lowest pandemic. More than 1 million travelers have passed through U.S. airports in the past twenty days, although traffic in March was nearly half lower than in the same period in 2019.
The numbers are rising on the way to the important summer holiday season. Last summer was a disaster for the airlines, contributing to Delta’s annual loss of more than $ 12 billion. The airlines are eager to increase revenue as quickly as possible, which means more seats need to be sold.
Delta said it had more than 1 million passengers in the past few days, the highest number since the coronavirus pandemic began last year.
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The airline has taken steps to increase passenger capacity, including the opening of middle seats on Sunday and Monday to accommodate passengers.
On Wednesday, the airline announced that it would stop blocking the middle seats from May.
The move was made last April to keep passengers further apart, a policy that Delta chief executive repeatedly mentions that it increases confidence in the airline. The seats will be reopened as the air travel recovers and more people are vaccinated against COVID-19, the airline said.
Delta said the middle seats were only open for Sunday and Monday, and the policy to block seats has not changed.
Where necessary, seats can be unblocked to get customers to their destinations on the same day.
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The airline industry was divided over the utility of blocking middle seats to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19 on a flight. Airlines, including Delta, Southwest, Alaska and JetBlue, have limited seats for months, while United Airlines has never done so and American has only done so briefly.
Social distance is difficult, if not impossible, on an airplane, even when the middle seats are empty – a point that United chief executive Scott Kirby has repeatedly made to explain his airline’s resistance to seating.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.