More than 1,000 flights canceled ahead of Memorial Day weekend amid staff shortages as millions travel

• More than 1,000 US flights have been canceled on Friday and Saturday.
• More than 200 Delta flights were canceled early Saturday, with most at LaGuardia airport.

More than 1,000 flights across the US have been canceled going into the Memorial Day Weekend as millions prepare to travel amid staff shortages, data shows.

According to data published by Flight Aware, more than 1,000 flights within, into or out of the US were canceled on Friday. Live data showed 324 had been canceled as of early Saturday, including 222 Delta flights and 19 United flights.

Most of the cancelations came from flights entering or leaving LaGuardia in New York and Newark Liberty International airports on Friday.

United, LaGuardia and Newark didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment outside normal working hours.

"For this Memorial Day weekend, we are looking to enact cancelations at least 24 hours in advance of departure time wherever possible," Delta told Insider in a statement. "In addition to the factors outlined in our news release, our schedule today reflects heavy impact from adverse weather and air traffic control actions yesterday."

Elsewhere, a number of Asian airlines including Spring Airlines and Lion Air, and European carriers including easyJet and KLM were also dealing with cancelations.

The Federal Aviation Administration told The Wall Street Journal that many major US airports were subject to ground stops and delays, limiting takeoffs and landings, because of staffing issues and traffic volumes.

According to the AAA, almost 40 million people are expected to travel more than 50 miles over the holiday weekend, with more than 3 million forecast to fly.

The US aviation industry is in flux as demand returns following the lifting of pandemic-era restrictions, and inflation adds to prices.

The Transport and Security Administration screened 2.4 million people on Thursday, 4.2% below the level at the same time in 2019.

Delta announced it was canceling about 100 flights a day over the summer to avoid major travel disruptions, joining a number of major airlines including American and United in cutting capacity against 2019 levels, according to data from Airlines for America.

US airlines are cutting training requirements to get more pilots in the air to combat staff shortages that have exacerbated scheduling issues.