On Monday, Southeast Airlines apologized to its customers for canceling more than two thousand flights. Further, it blamed the bad weather for the flight cancelation at the weekend. It insisted that staff members striking in protest at an inoculation mandate were not concerned with the chaos across its network. The president of the airline, Mike Van de Ven, told workers in a video on Sunday that staffing shortages were to blame.
Initially, the airline said air traffic control issues in Florida triggered the issue. Afterward, the Federal Aviation Authority released a statement saying there were problems for some hours on Friday, but not at the weekend. Furious travelers said that they were told in airports that the cancellations of flights were because of the Southwest workers departing in protest at the decisions of the airline to enforce coronavirus vaccinations.
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
However, the airline said that was not the case and said bad weather in Jacksonville sparked a knock-on effect. The airline said that it extends a colossal apology to its employees and customers for the flight cancellations and delays which occurred over the weekend and on Monday.
On Friday evening, Southwest Airlines ended the day with several cancellations, mainly created because of poor weather and other external constraints, which left the plane and Crews out of pre-planned positions to execute their schedule on Saturday. Regrettably, the out-of-place airplane and continuous strain on Crew resources created further cancelations across the point-to-point network that fell during the weekend and into Monday morning.
Were other airlines also canceled flights?
Southeast Airlines was the only airline to report issues on such a larger scale over the weekend, and passengers accused it of not being honest with their customers about the delays. On the other hand, American Airlines canceled only 2% of its flights while Spirit Airlines also dismissed 2% of flights, according to the reports of FlightAware.
Source: Web
Late Sunday, Van de Ven told employees that he expected Monday to be more normal than the weekend when employee shortages forced the airliner to cancel approximately two thousand flights across the country. He told workers that the airline was working to develop a plan to address many failings, including weekends tight staffing in addition to lingering delays and cancelations. In addition, the FAA denied the reports of a mass sickout at the air traffic control center at Jacksonville International Airport, which reportedly affected Southwest.
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