With staff shortages still causing flight delays and cancellations nationwide, travelers shouldn’t expect to see an improvement this Fourth of July.

The American Automobile Association predicts 3.55 million travelers will take to the sky Independence Day weekend.

William McGee, senior fellow for aviation at American Economic Liberties Project, said the pilot shortages and other problems plaguing the airline industry won’t be over any time soon.

“Certain jobs cannot be filled quickly, nor should they be when it’s as critical as, you know, pilots,” McGee said. “And so now we have this shortage. There’s just no way it’s going to be fixed this summer.”

McGee said he’s been around the airline industry in one role or another since 1985, and said he’s never seen the high number of cancellations travelers are dealing with now.

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McGee said hiring pilots and other personnel will help, but the high number of cancellations is a problem the airlines themselves created by scheduling flights they know they can’t operate.

“The immediate fix is to make some tough decisions, is to say, ‘Well, here’s our schedule. We’re not going to be able to operate, you know, x percent of flights in the coming weeks and months.’ and start notifying passengers now, not you know, when they’re in a taxi on the way to the airport,” McGee said.

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American Airlines recently reported it will discontinue flights to Toledo, Ohio, and Ithaca and Islip, New York on Sept. 7 because of pilot shortages.

McGee said he finds this trend disturbing.

“I think as always, the airlines are looking to maximize their profits and so they want to fly from the biggest markets, but I think, you know, we do that at our peril,” McGee said. “There’s a lot of talk in the industry about, you know, airlines connecting people to the world, but here we are talking about disconnecting a lot of Americans, you know, to the world.”