4th of July travelers encountering delays, flight cancellations
With the 4th of July just days away, travelers going through Los Angeles International Airport are already dealing with delays and cancellations.
In just Friday alone, there have already been 559 cancellations for flights coming into, traveling within or leaving the United States and a total of 6,479 delays, according to the air travel site FlightAware.
Tobias Levene is a military reservist who's trying get to Washington State for a military exercise but he was met with a series of delays and cancellations at LAX.
"I'm still stuck at LAX... it's almost 6 hours later," Levene told CBSLA Reporter Jeff Nguyen. "It was worse than I could've imagined."
Unfortunately for Levene, things got even worse after his luggage was misplaced and was packed into a departing flight. It's added stress for him as he now has to figure out another way to get to his destination.
"I'm from LA. I'd rather be stuck here than stuck in a place where I have no support. No network," Levene said.
For one Orange County family is headed for the East Coast for the holiday weekend, its flights was not cancelled but the family won't be able to sit together.
"They emailed us already. They changed the plane (but) they didn't cancel the flight," Mohammad Matar said. "We still have the same flight but they canceled the plane and we had to change the seats."
However, things at LAX are much better than most airports around the nation. Most flights leaving LAX are on schedule.
A big reason for the delays and cancellations across the country could be a staff shortage.
During the pandemic – thousands of airline pilots retired, which led to staffing shortages for a number of airlines.
With things slowly getting back to how it was pre-pandemic, increased travel demands have led to pricing spikes but Taylor Raschillo was willing to pay the price to come to Los Angeles from New York City.
It's so gross right now. ... It's so hot. The city is not fun in the summer. And LA is like the best place to be," Raschillo said.
The California Auto Club said air travel in Southern California is slightly up compared to Independence Day in 2021.
But is still down about 8 percent compared to 2019.
