May 31, 2022

ITRE’s Daniel Findley was one of the air travel experts featured by WIRED in the recent story “Think Airport Crowds Are Bad Now? Wait ’Til Summer,” published on 5/24/22:

Daniel Findley, associate director at the Institute for Transportation Research and Education in North Carolina, says staffing cutbacks through the industry have created a lean system that leaves little margin for error, especially when weather comes into play.

“You see it on the pilot side, for instance, and on flight crews, air traffic control, and on the supply chain and material side. When one thing breaks, you know, is there another pilot and flight crew that can come in when some critical engine part needs to be replaced?” Findley says, “What’s the cascading effect when in the morning the flight crew isn’t in the place it needs to be and there’s no backup crew? Now you’ve missed a whole day of flights and those connections.”

Read the full article: WIRED – Think Airport Crowds Are Bad Now? Wait ’Til Summer