American Airlines canceled another 634 flights on Sunday, nearly one in every four of its flights for the day, according to data from flight-tracking website FlightAware.
According to CNN, The airline has now canceled more than 1,500 flights since Friday, as it deals with weather issues and staffing shortages that started last week. “With additional weather throughout the system, our staffing begins to run tight as crew members end up out of their regular flight sequences,” American said in a statement to CNN on Saturday.
Two days of severe winds in Dallas-Fort Worth, its largest hub, sharply reduced arrival capacity, the company said. The airline canceled 543 flights Saturday according to FlightAware, roughly 20% of its operation. American reported 4,967 flights had been scheduled on Saturday.
According to Daily Mail, The American cancellations primarily affected its largest hub, Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, as well as airports in Charlotte, Miami, and Phoenix.
A spokesperson for the Allied Pilots Association, Captain Dennis Tajer, blamed management for the cancellations, though in a statement to DailyMail.com, he did not respond when asked about whether pilots and other employees were unhappy with the vaccine mandate and if that factored into the staff shortages.
‘As we look at management’s tracked reasons for cancellations, it confirms that there was a weather event but then, as has been during the summer, management failed to connect pilots and flight attendants to the airplanes many days after the storm passes,’ Tajer told DailyMail.com.
‘Mother nature generates a storm and management’s failure to properly schedule creates storms days after.’ Tajer added: ‘The mark of a great airline is not performing well on clear days, it’s how it recovers after the weather disrupts operations. ‘For much too long, management is failing to meet the fundamentals of airline operations and they aren’t showing any interest in joining us to find solutions.
