Just in case you thought the seemingly never-ending headaches of U.S. air travel were going to abate anytime soon, here's evidence that those problems are not, in fact, going away:
The aviation industry is short roughly 32,000 commercial pilots, mechanics and air traffic controllers — and the gap widens every year, a CBS News analysis of data from the FAA, U.S. Department of Transportation and U.S. Department of Labor shows.
"There's definitely gaps in places," said [Mayor Pete] Buttigieg. "The system is just uneven right now."
"The system is just uneven right now." Uneven?
I know the administration likes to make a big deal of Mayor Pete flying coach class whenever he needs to go somewhere for a day, but this reads like someone who really doesn't fly much at all.
Even CBS, which as a mainstream media outlet is effectively indistinguishable from a Democratic Super PAC, can't cover up the sheer chaos of flying in the United States these days:
The pressure on the system became clear during a recent four-day period this summer: June 24-27, when 31,850 flights — a third of all flights nationwide — were delayed. During that time, airlines canceled 6,346 scheduled flights.
A third of all flights delayed! And thousands of flights cancelled!
That's not uneven, that's straight-up lopsided. And the problem isn't just bad, it's getting worse: The network notes that the number of delayed flights was "25% higher than in the same period last year, while compared to 2019 it was up 374%.
We've been flying commercial for well over a century now. It shouldn't be this hard to do — for either airlines or for federal regulators like Pete Buttigieg.
