American Airlines has had to cancel hundreds of flights this weekend due to staffing shortages triggered by weather-related disruptions according to FlightAware data on Saturday.
The website, which tracks delays and cancellations in the US skies, showed that American Airlines cancelled more than 800 flights on Friday and Saturday and expects more than 400 cancellations on Sunday.
American Airlines CEO David Seymour said in a memo to staff on Saturday that the difficulties began on Thursday with strong wind storms that blocked capacity at the company’s Dallas hub and delayed staff positioning for upcoming flights.
“This week saw two days of severe winds in DFW, with gusts of up to 50 mph on Thursday, creating crosswind limitations that sharply reduced arrival capacity by more than half,” American Airlines said.
The airline was only able to use two runways at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport instead of the usual five to handle their operation, American said.
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The company boss said that with additional weather issues, staffing “begins to run tight as crew members end up out of their regular flight sequences.” He said he hoped that operations will be restored “quickly with the start of a new month.”
Most of the customers who were impacted by the flight cancellations were being rebooked the same day, according to American Airlines.
Heading towards the busy holiday travel season, carriers are working to hire more employees.
American Airlines said it is increasing its staffing across all operations, with nearly 1,800 flight attendants returning from leave and more than 600 newly hired flight attendants coming on board by the end of December.
Southwest also said it was hiring aggressively, with the aim of having about 5,000 new employees by the end of this year.
Earlier this month, Southwest canceled nearly 2,400 flights over a three-day period, blaming unfavorable weather and air traffic issues in Florida.
(With inputs from ANI)
