American Airlines will be facing a terrifying Halloween weekend, after its Dallas Fort Worth-based carrier had to cancel over 1,000 flights on Saturday and Sunday. For the hundreds of delays caused by flight delays, the airline blamed bad weather conditions and insufficient staffing.
This meltdown follows a Southwest Airlines flight cancellation disaster that occurred just weeks ago. The root cause was also blamed for bad weather. Southwest cancelled over 2,000 flights in six days, costing Southwest $75 million in direct expenses, refunds, and goodwill gestures.
Flight Aware reports that American Airlines cancelled 540 flights Saturday, and has already cancelled 497 more flights scheduled for Sunday. On Saturday, 400 delayed services caused disruption for thousands of passengers.
American Airlines Chief Executive Doug Parker informed staffers in an internal memo that the airline's last few days of Oct would be difficult. He also blamed severe winds at its hub at Dallas Fort Worth for the problems.
Parker stated that crosswinds up to 50 mph on Thursday had reduced the arrival capacity by more half.
DFW was forced to cancel many flights due to the fact that we couldn't use five runways as usual.
The memo said that additional weather can cause our staffing to be stretched and crew members are forced to leave their normal flight schedules. Parker informed staff that most customers were rebooked for a flight leaving the same day.
The airline will welcome 1,800 long-term pandemic flight attendants back to work on November 1. It will also hire the first flight attendants.
American expects 600 new flight attendants to be online by December 31, while the airport team will be strengthened with approximately 4,000 new hires over the next few months.
Southwest claims it is actively hiring more staff to meet travel demand. It hopes to hire 5,000 additional employees by the end of the year. Southwest has had to reduce its capacity due to more conservative staffing assumptions.
United Airlines has criticised rivals who have stretched their capacity, as it leaves little room for disruption.
