IT WAS a Saturday morning in early June. My carry-on bag was packed with essentials for a girls’ trip to the Caribbean months in the making. I’d gotten the required negative Covid test, submitted complicated customs forms and planned an itinerary for every day I’d be there. Yet when it was time to enter the airport, I couldn’t get out of the car.
With people returning to travel en masse, airports are nearly as busy as they were prepandemic. Unfortunately, airlines have not been able to staff up to handle the rebound, reporting that the process has been slower and more complex than expected. In fact, several times this year, including in early July, the Transportation Security Administration reported that more people went through their security checkpoints than did so on the same date in 2019. The result: Problems before takeoff—including frequent delays and cancellations—and after landing. According to a recent report from the U.S. Department of Transportation, airlines misplaced almost 220,000 bags during domestic flights in April, more than double what they lost last April.
