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Travel Chaos Looms as United Cuts 100+ Flights at Major Airport

The FAA swears the move will somehow reduce delays.

Just in time for the summer travel crush, United Airlines is cutting more than 100 flights per day at Chicago’s always-busy O’Hare International Airport to comply with an order from the Federal Aviation Administration. Bizarrely, the cuts have been mandated to prevent widespread delays, according to the FAA, which came up with its remedy following a “series of meetings‚” according to a statement from Donald Trump’s Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. It wasn’t immediately clear how cutting flights would reduce delays. O’Hare is the busiest airport in America by flight volume, with more than 857,000 takeoffs and landings each day. Omar Idris, United’s Vice President for O’Hare, assured airline personnel in a letter that no staff cuts are planned. The airline will reduce its flights from 780 to 650 per day beginning in June, and will focus on preserving early-morning flight times and peak afternoon traffic, he noted. The FAA has ordered a total of 300 flights to be cut daily at O’Hare, down from the previously planned 3,080 during the summer months.