May 1 (UPI) -- The U.S. government said Monday that new flights in the East Coast should save commuters time, though recent data show nearly a quarter of passenger flights have been delayed this year.
Since the start of the year, data from FlightAware show there were close to 2.6 million scheduled flights from U.S.-based carriers. Of those, 41,000, or 1.6% of the total, were canceled and 565,201, or 22%, were delayed.
The average delay so far this year is 51 minutes, a delay that could in theory lead to a missed flight.
On Monday, the Federal Aviation Administration said it sanctioned 169 new flight paths along the U.S. East Coast that it expects will save commuters 6,000 minutes of travel time annually because of shorter routes.
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"These significant improvements to our national airspace system are just in time for summer and will help travelers get to their destinations more efficiently," said Tim Arel, the chief operating officer of the FAA's Air Traffic Organization. "The new routes will reduce complexity and redistribute volume across all available airspace."
Travel volumes for this time of year are back to pre-pandemic levels of around 2.5 million, based on the number of people passing through airport security each day. Airlines, however, are underperforming.
Southwest Airlines in its first quarter report said a $159 million loss was attributed to its "operational disruption" in December, when it canceled more than 16,7000 flights.
At its peak, Southwest was forced to cancel nearly 70% of its flights near the year-end holiday travel period due to severe winter weather and staffing shortages. Those issues are not necessarily resolved by additional flights.
