Kathleen Miller was sleeping when the text from Southwest Airlines arrived at 1:18 a.m. Sunday.
Her 7:30 a.m. flight from Phoenix to Dallas was canceled.
The Pennsylvania woman didn’t see the text until she was at the airport, where Southwest representatives directed her to a snaking rebooking line next to the ticker counters.
She stood in line for 45 minutes and left with a less-than-satisfactory rebooking option: a Tuesday flight.
“Luckily we have relatives here in the city,” Miller said.
Stranded Southwest passengers across the country are struggling with a second day of mass flight cancellations by the nation’s largest domestic airline.
Southwest has canceled 1,006 Sunday flights as of 11 a.m. ET, according to flight tracker FlightAware. That’s 27% of the the airline’s scheduled flights and the highest of any U.S. airline by a wide margin.
American Airlines has canceled 63 flights, or 2% of its operation, while Spirit Airlines canceled 32 flights, or 4% of its flights, according to FlightAware.
Southwest’s Sunday cancellation are on top of 808 cancellations on Saturday, or nearly one in four flights. This during a busy travel weekend given a federal holiday on Monday.
The airline blamed the problem on air traffic control issues and weather. In a statement Saturday the airline expressed optimism its operations on Sunday would improve, not worsen.
“We experienced significant impact in the Florida airports yesterday (Friday) evening after an FAA-imposed air traffic management program was implemented due to weather and resulted in a large number of cancellations. We are working hard behind the scenes to minimize challenges and fully recover the operation as we take care of displaced crews and customers as quickly as possible. We will continue to reset our network today and hope to return to close to normal operations as we move into Sunday.”
ATC issues and disruptive weather have resulted in a high volume of cancellations throughout the weekend while we work to recover our operation. We appreciate your patience as we accommodate affected Customers, and Customer Service wait times are longer than usual. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/o1scQJ5lLb
— Southwest Airlines (@SouthwestAir) October 9, 2021
The airline has not commented on speculation about other possible causes, including opposition to a vaccine mandate the airline announced a week ago.
“Southwest Airlines must join our industry peers in complying with the federal government’s COVID-19 vaccination directive,” Southwest CEO Gary Kelly said on Oct. 4.
Casey Murray, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA) blamed the flight woes on staffing and a “poorly run operation.” He said the rate of pilots calling in sick has not spiked this weekend. He said nearly three out of four pilots working Saturday had trips rerouted due to the flight woes.
In a statement posted to its website Saturday, the union said: “SWAPA is aware of operational difficulties affecting Southwest Airlines today due to a number of issues, but we can say with confidence that our pilots are not participating in any official or unofficial job actions.
“Our pilots will continue to overcome SWA management’s poor planning, as well as any external operational challenges, and remain the most productive pilots in the world. They will continue to be focused on their highest priority — safety.”
The fall travel troubles for Southwest follow a rough summer for the airline’s operation. The airline’s executives have repeatedly said their top priority is getting Southwest’s operation back on track.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/southwest-airlines-flight-woes-continue-150820206.html
boycott all airlines
Interesting since a couple I know took SWA from Houston to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico for anniversary vacation a couple of weeks ago…no problems and they didn’t have to be vaxxed either to take the trip. Smoke and mirrors?