Southwest Cancels Thousands of Flights Nationwide

Over the weekend Southwest Airlines cancelled over 2,000 flights. According to FlightAware an aviation tracking website, three of every 10 departures that were scheduled yesterday were cancelled and today 337 flights have been cancelled as of this morning. The company blamed the cancelled flights on air traffic control problems and limited staffing in Florida as well as bad weather. The airline said “we’ve continued diligent work throughout the weekend to reset our operation with a focus on getting aircraft and crews repositioned to take care of our customers.”

The FAA said there have been no air traffic cancellations since Friday and that airlines are experiencing delays because of aircraft and crews being out of place. Other airlines did not appear to be significantly impacted by the issues but yesterday American Airlines and Spirit Airlines cancelled 2% of their flights. Last week, Southwest announced a vaccine mandate for employees which fueled rumors of a pilot walk-out, but the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association says the cancellations were due to ‘management’s poor planning’.