That's a leap. My understanding is that airlines are affected by the same thing every other employer is seeing -- they can't hire. It might be exacerbated by the fact that airlines reduced/eliminated their training pipeline. For example:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/15/us-pilot-shortage-forces-air...
> The pandemic exacerbated a pilot shortage by slowing down training, hiring and creating a wave of early retirements.
> Airlines offered pilots early retirements to cut labor bills during the depths of the pandemic.
> The process to become airline-qualified in the U.S. is lengthy and expensive, making the barrier to entry high.
> An EasyJet spokesperson attributed the increase in cancelled flights to "higher than usual staff sickness levels" due to a recent surge in COVID-19 cases across Europe.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/airlines-face-mask-covid-rules-...
In 2022, we're already at 76,776 flights cancelled and not even halfway through the year, so nearly the amount cancelled in 2018 and 2019 combined. I'm curious if there's anything different that's happening this year vs those other two that would account for such a stark increase in cancelled flights, likely due to an impacted labor force. Probably just people out with colds.