U.S. Airlines received $48 billion in payroll support, so why are ticket prices rising?

A shortage of pilots and a faster-than-expected takeoff in passenger demand is forcing some airlines to cut back flights and retool schedules. Passengers who have already booked their summer travel should look out for the possibility of rebookings — and those who have yet to buy their tickets should watch out for rising air fares, experts say.

Airlines coped with the plunge in passenger traffic during the pandemic by furloughing workers and accelerating retirement and early retirement programs at large scale, or encouraging them to take extended unpaid time off from the aviation industry. Some found new jobs in truck driving, warehouses or turned to food stamps.

The airline industry received $48 billion in payroll support from coronavirus relief legislation. Airlines warned of steep layoffs if more support wasn’t forthcoming. They also issued layoff notices and then canceled them after receiving more support. At the time, the industry said it needed the relief in part to maintain employees so they could meet domestic flying demand after passengers came back. Despite these efforts, the industry is still scrambling.

Airlines were already struggling with a pilot shortfall going into the pandemic to replace a swath of pilots and mechanics, hired during the 1980s boom, who had reached mandatory retirement age. They also reduced training events and flying rotations needed to maintain proficiency, said Bob Mann, industry analyst with R.W. Mann & Co., an aviation sector consulting firm

“With a domestic recovery underway, the industry faces a shortage of skilled personnel and an empty replacement pipeline — except to rob and retrain pilots and [maintenance technicians] from their affiliated/vendor regional airlines, which just outplaces the shortage to the industry operating almost half of domestic U.S. flights,” Mann said.

While that strategy saved cash in the short term, it only exacerbated the crunch once fliers returned.

“All of this was obvious, and stated, from the start — unless you assumed demand would never recover, which it always has,” Mann told NBC News in an emailed statement.

American Airlines canceled over 400 flights over the weekend, according to flight data tracked by FlightAware, and projected it will have to cancel 50 flights per day until mid-July, over 1,200 in total, or 1 percent of its total schedule.

The airline cited staffing shortages, maintenance issues, and inclement weather, and said it was trying to minimize passenger disruption.

“The first few weeks of June have brought unprecedented weather to our largest hubs, heavily impacting our operation and causing delays, canceled flights and disruptions to crew member schedules and our customers’ plans,” American Airlines said in a statement emailed to NBC News. “That, combined with the labor shortages some of our vendors are contending with and the incredibly quick ramp up of customer demand, has led us to build in additional resilience and certainty to our operation by adjusting a fraction of our scheduled flying through mid-July.”

By Ben Popken www.nbcnews.com