Travel plans for millions of Americans ready to hit the road for the summer could be interrupted by gas shortages due to the lack of tank truck drivers needed to transport fuel to gas stations.
Jonesing to take a road trip this summer? Good luck finding gas.
This isn t the typical California summer gas price hike. This predicted shortage isn t due to a lack of crude oil or gasoline, but because there aren t enough truck drivers to deliver the supply to gas stations. According to the National Tank Truck Carriers (NTTC), roughly 20-25% of tank trucks in the fleet are parked. Whereas two years ago, only 10% of trucks were parked. Ryan Streblow, the Executive Vice President of the NTTC, had this to say: We ve been dealing with a driver shortage for a while, but the pandemic took that issue and metastasized it. It certainly has grown exponentially.
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Summer of travel chaos looms: TSA has failed to fill 3,800 of 6,000 positions and checkpoint waiting times are ALREADY spiking to pre-pandemic levels
The TSA planned to hire 6,000 security checkpoint officers by summer due to the expected increase in travel amid ongoing COVID-19 vaccinations
Since announcing the job drive back in February, the TSA has only filled 2,200 of those positions
Wait times at some TSA checkpoints across the country are currently more than 45 minutes
These pre-pandemic wait times at some airports may be an indication of staffing issues and increased passenger numbers
So far in April, the TSA has screened an average of 1.4 million people per day, compared to this time last year when the number was just over 106,000