interview i did with transportation secretary pete buttigieg where i asked him whether the airlines are up for the challenge. we saw a lot of the airlines thinning out their schedules and workforce. and now faster than expected the demand has could roaring back and they are struggling to keep up. that is true whether we re talking about flight attendant crews or pilots. and so we ve got to make sure that we have short term and long term approaches. reporter: one of those short term solutions, airlines proactively canceling flights. delta is one of the latest saying that it will shed about 100 flights a day in the month of july. memorial day is so much about driving and aaa anticipated 34.9 million people would drive 50 miles or more over the five days surrounding memorial day when gas prices are so sky high. when you adjust for inflation, last time we saw gas prices this high was during memorial day 2012, a ten year high.
would return. now faster than expected the demand has come roaring back and they re struggling to keep up. that s true whether we re talking about flight attendant crews, whether we re talking about pilots. so we ve got to make sure we have short-term and long-term approaches. reporter: one of those solutions the airline proactively canceling flights. it will shed about 100 flights a day from its schedule divergent the month of july. aaa anticipated 34.9 million people would drive 50 miles or more over the five days surrounding memorial day when gas prices are so sky high. when you adjust those for inflation the last time we saw gas prices this high was memorial day 2012. in the coming hours u.s. president joe biden scheduled to discuss record high inflation with fed reserve chairman jerome powell. this meeting comes as americans grapple with soaring prices from inflation not seen in decades.
mike: tom cruise tom cruise is flying high this memorial day weekend. his b-movie as they had at the box office. the film is expected to earn 151 million over the holidays. it comes 36 years after the original top gun helped make hi a major hollywood star appeared after two years of pandemic pauses on holiday travel, millions are making up for this memorial day. this comes despite a covid resurgence in some areas and record high gasoline prices. christina coleman is in santa monica, california, tonight. after two years of covid uncertainty, both are taking advantage to kick up the unofficial start of summer. aaa estimates that 34.9 million people will travel by car this
listen to what he says when i asked him whether or not airlines are up for the challenge now. we saw a lot of airlines during the pandemic thinning out their schedules and thinning out their workforce not knowing when demand was going to return. now, faster than expected the demand has come roaring back and they are struggling to keep up. that s true whether we re talking about flight attendant crews, whether we re talking about pilots and so we ve got to make sure that we ve got short-term and long-term approaches. one of those short-term solutions, delta airlines is proactively cancelling flights in the month of july shedding about 100 flights a day from its schedule. remember though that memorial day is really more of a driving holiday. aaa anticipated 34.9 million people will drive 50 miles or more over the five-day memorial day travel period, and this is all coming as people are really shelling out for gas. the national average $4.62 for a gallon of regular, and even when you
the transportation mass mandate, but also as airlines are facing these huge staffing shortages causing cancellations of flights. just look at the numbers according to the tsa, it s screening about 2 million people or more for the last few days, those numbers about 90% of what we saw back in 2019 before the pandemic and the tsa says we could still see a number that is even higher than the same day back in 2019. aaa predicted numbers pretty close to pre-pandemic levels though not quite 34.9 million people hitting the road in total over the five-day memorial day travel period traveling 50 miles or more. those numbers not all that far off from what we saw back in 2019. we will see as this goes forward, though, so many people facing really high gas prices. the national average for a gallon of regular $4.62 according to aaa. even when you adjust it for inflation, this is the highest gas price that we have seen