Southwest Airlines thought the trials and tribulations they faced over the summer with mountains of flight delays and cancellations were a thing of the past, but this past weekend showed that those challenges had not been fully conquered.
Over 1,900 flights on Saturday and Sunday were cancelled by Southwest, leaving would-be passengers stranded nationwide. Sunday alone saw 30% of Southwest’s scheduled flights nixed.
Air traffic control issues and weather on Friday in Florida, a main hub for the airline, were blamed for the canceled flights, with the airline saying that the issues caused a ripple-effect all the way across the rest of the company’s flights, putting planes and employees out of commission with too few backup employees available to cover the deficit.
Southwest continues to deny that pilots and other workers walked out in protest of a federal vaccine mandate, despite the pilots union having sued to halt it.
“It was a very difficult weekend for many of you, and I’ve seen speculation on the reasoning,” Southwest CEO Gary Kelly told employees Monday, according to USA Today. “The fact is the Florida weather on Friday and unexpected ATC issues on Friday night resulted in delays and cancellations across our network, and it just got us behind.”
While Southwest is far from the only airline to experience staffing and scheduling issues during the ongoing COVID pandemic, they have had more than most. The airline says a hiring push should rectify most of their problems. They plan to hire 5,000 workers before the end of the year and another 8,000 in 2022.
In the meantime, the airline is looking at cutting back on its flight schedule to ensure the flights it books run on-time.
That cutback could include peak season for air travel: the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.
Southwest Airlines President and COO Mike Van de Ven told USA Today that the company will have to ask itself a very tough question: “On these peak holiday period travel days, do we have enough resiliency and recoverability if something unexpected happens?”
Van de Ven said that in the event of unforeseen circumstances, passengers would be offered a refund or rebooked onto an alternate flight.
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