About 2,800 flights were canceled Memorial Day weekend. More than 3,000 flights were canceled and another 19,000 were delayed over the weekend of Father’s Day and Juneteenth. Last weekend was only slightly better, with hundreds of U.S. flights canceled, including 800 on Sunday, a day that saw nearly 7,000 delays. That does little to instill confidence in the airlines’ ability to keep pace during the upcoming July 4 holiday weekend.

Much of the problem is tied to staffing. Airlines that laid off pilots, mechanics and customer service representatives during the COVID-19 pandemic were slow to bring them back as restrictions eased and air travel picked up. Now, many airlines are offering $10,000 signing bonuses to lure workers back. But even if the pace of hiring were to pick up, it might not ease summer travel woes. It takes time to train and retrain employees, and airlines are continuing to discontinue flights altogether rather than risk costly delays.

This all comes despite airlines receiving more than $54 billion in federal COVID bailout funding. Where did that money go? And how could airlines have not foreseen a return to pre-pandemic levels of travel? Last Friday, more than 2.4 million people passed through security checkpoints at U.S. airports, coming within about 12,500 of breaking the pandemic-era high recorded on the Sunday after Thanksgiving last year. They should have seen it coming.

“This is really an unacceptable situation,” William McGee, senior fellow for aviation and travel at the nonprofit American Economic Liberties Project, told The Washington Post. “They got that big bailout with grants and loans and there was only one caveat: You need to make sure your staffing stays up. So what did airlines do? They found a loophole and they managed to encourage people to leave, which is exactly what Congress asked them not to do.”

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