American Airlines canceled another 634 flights on Sunday, according to data from flight-tracking website FlightAware. 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.
In a note to staff on Saturday, American COO David Seymour blamed the delays on poor weather conditions around the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, the airline’s base of operations, that had displaced staff around the country, according to CNBC.
“With additional weather throughout the system, our staffing begins to run tight as crew members end up out of their regular flight sequences,” the airline said in the statement.
As demand for air travel ramps up during the coming holiday season, American announced that 1,800 flight attendants will be returning from leave on Nov. 1 in preparation for the holiday travel season, and more than 600 newly hired flight attendants expected to come on board by the end of December.
Southwest Airlines says it is also hiring aggressively, with the aim of having about 5,000 new employees by the end of this year. Southwest had an operational meltdown one weekend earlier in October, canceling more than 2,000 weekend flights.
Southwest blamed the move on air traffic control problems and limited staffing in Florida as well as bad weather, saying getting its operations back to normal was “more difficult and prolonged” because of schedule and staffing reductions implemented during the pandemic, according to CNN Business.
