American Airlines has ALREADY canceled 200 flights this morning - after 1,000 were scuttled on Sunday: Carrier blames staff shortages and WIND for mayhem and experts warn of looming holiday chaos
American Airlines continued its Halloween horror of a weekend by cancelling more than 200 flights early Monday morning, following more than 1,700 cancellations since Friday as experts warn of looming chaos ahead of the holiday season.
Tens of thousands of passengers were stranded over a four-day period that saw 10 percent of the airline's flights affected.
The airline has blamed weather control issues, such as strong winds that battered its Dallas hub earlier this weekend, and ongoing staff shortages due to layoffs made when travel cratered at the start of the COVID outbreak.
Airlines made staff cuts and furloughed thousands of workers in the early stages of the pandemic. They have also found that the process of rehiring those same workers or replacing those who opted for early retirement have been more complicated than anticipated.
American is the latest airline to show signs of struggling to adjust to the surge in renewed demand for travel in the post-lockdown era. In August, Spirit Airlines cancelled more than 2,800 flights over an 11-day stretch. Last month, Southwest cancelled more than 1,800 flights over the course of a weekend and delayed hundreds more.
Peter Vlitas, the executive vice president of the global airlines relation division of Internova Travel Group, told DailyMail.com: 'With travel rebounding at a much faster pace than expected, the entire industry is facing service shortages, not only in staffing but also in material goods required to meet the increasing demand.
'Now combine that with Mother Nature, and what you have is the perfect storm.
'What we are seeing is a combination that results in service disruptions: crew shortage, weather and limited equipment combined with unexpected demand.'
The extreme weather in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex last week - where wind gusts reached 50mph and forced the closure of airport runways, caused cancellations and delays - triggered a domino effect that left airline crew in the wrong places, according to American Airlines.
Angry passengers shared a snap of an AA line at Dallas Fort Worth Sunday after fresh cancellations
Lines snaked around the Texas airport's terminal as more than 800 flights - almost half of the airline's planned schedule, were nixed, bringing the total axed over the weekend to more than 1,600
One passenger vowed to never fly American Airlines again after two of her flights were either cancelled or delayed on her way home
Data from the monitoring site FlightAware shows that American Airlines cancelled nearly 290 flights on Monday (left). Most of those were affecting its largest hub, Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (right)
'Our staffing begins to run tight, as crew members end up out of their regular flight sequences,' Chief Operating Officer David Seymour said in a memo to his employees. News of the memo was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Seymour told his employees that the airline plans to hire more pilots, flight attendants and support staff in the coming weeks.
The airline expects some 1,800 flight attendants to return from leave starting Monday. It also hopes to hire an additional 600 flight attendants by the end of the year.
American is also planning to hire 4,000 support staff by the end of December, according to Seymour.
The airline additionally wants to hire some 2,500 more pilots, but the pilots union said doing so quickly won't be easy due to a lack of instructors and flight simulators. The extremely tight labor market also means that American will have to compete for support staff workers by offering higher wages, making a rapid staffing even more difficult.
'We continue to staff up across our entire operation and we will see more of our team returning in the coming months,' Seymour said in the letter.
The Association of Professional Flight Attendants, the union representing American Airlines flight attendants, released a statement to DailyMail.com on Monday which read: 'Flight Attendant staffing at American remains strained and reflects what is happening across the industry as we continue to deal with pandemic-related issues.
'Flight Attendant schedules are being disrupted to protect the operation to help our customers make it to their destinations.'
In total, nearly 2,000 flights have been axed by the airline since Friday with up to 1,000 delays and 500 cancellations potentially looming, according to FlightAware.
On Sunday alone, more than 850 flights - or 16 percent of that day's fleet total - were cancelled while 365 trips were delayed.
Prior to that, 543 flights were cancelled on Saturday while 400 were delayed, and on Friday, 343 cancellations happened.
'With additional weather throughout the system, our staffing begins to run tight as crew members end up out of their regular flight sequences,' American Airlines said in a statement to CNN.
Despite continuing issues throughout the weekend, an spokesman for the airline said they are expected to be resolved on Monday.
Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted early on Monday morning that his 7 a.m. flight to Orlando from Washington, D.C., had been cancelled.
Rubio was scheduled to give remarks to NatCon 2, a conference hosted by the Edmund Burke Foundation, which is held from October 31 until November 2.
The senator tweeted: 'My 7am flight to Orlando on @AmericanAir to speak at @NatConTalk is cancelled.
'And they automatically rebooked me on a flight that doesn’t even leave Miami until AFTER my flight from Orlando to Washington.
'It’s just going to be one of those days.'
One of the main causes of the cancellations and delays over the course of the weekend has largely been attributed to the weather conditions in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
The area has seen two days of strong winds leaving passengers stranded at the one of American Airlines' biggest hubs, Dallas Fort Wort International Airport.
Wind conditions, which are currently at 9mph, were said to have strong gusts earlier in the weekend with a recorded high of 60mph on Friday.
That has caused a knock-on effect where staff stuck on earlier delayed or canceled flights have gone over the number of hours they can work, lowering the number of people now available to cover later flights.
Others are also no longer at the airports they're supposed to be working on due to earlier cancellations and delays.
'The fact that there is inadequate staffing to cover the operation as it is currently structured is not the fault of Flight Attendants,' a union for US flight attendants said in a statement to its members on Saturday, according to the Wall Street Journal.
A host of angry passengers took to social media over Halloween weekend to vent about the cancellations and delays.
Will Tyler wrote that he waited days to get a response from the airline about refunds for cancelled and 'ridiculously rebooked flights.'
A traveler named Tracy posted a screenshot on Sunday of a message indicating her rescheduled flight after her initial booking from Reno to Dallas was cancelled.
Matt Swanson, a traveler who was flying from New York's LaGuardia Airport, posted images to his Twitter account.
'@AmericanAir We get it's a hard day for you. What are you doing to get this 3 HOUR rebooking desk line moving located at LGA near gate 31?' he tweeted.
Carlos Porrata posted a screen shot indicating that his American Airlines flight on Saturday was cancelled
Eric Hardt posted this image from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. He called American Airlines 'completely incompetent' because 'they are stranding thousands of passengers due to a "labor shortage".' He added: 'They shouldn't sell tickets when they don't have staff for planes. I have had two flights cancelled. Waited 3 hours for no help. And I have Gold status.'
Senator Marco Rubio, the Republican from Florida, tweeted early on Monday morning that his 7am flight to Orlando from Washington, DC, was cancelled. Rubio had been scheduled to give remarks to NatCon 2, a conference hosted by the Edmund Burke Foundation, which was being held from October 31 until November 2
Another American Airlines customer took to Twitter and blasted the company for having 'preemptively cancelled flights knowing that you wouldn't have the staff to handle it'
Will Tyler wrote that he waited days to get a response from the airline about refunds for cancelled and 'ridiculously rebooked flights'
A traveler named Tracy posted a screenshot on Sunday of a message indicating her rescheduled flight after her initial booking from Reno to Dallas was cancelled.
Jason Cooper tweeted that he was 'stuck in Charlotte, North Carolina' because 'American Airlines forgot to schedule pilots to fly their planes today!'
Matt Swanson, a traveler who was flying from New York's LaGuardia Airport, posted these images to his Twitter account. '@AmericanAir We get it's a hard day for you. What are you doing to get this 3 HOUR rebooking desk line moving located at LGA near gate 31?' he tweeted. 'There are literally hundreds of passengers in this line with TWO agents. This is inhumane. What are you doing to fix this?'
'There are literally hundreds of passengers in this line with TWO agents. This is inhumane. What are you doing to fix this?'
Jason Cooper tweeted that he was 'stuck in Charlotte, North Carolina' because 'American Airlines forgot to schedule pilots to fly their planes today!'
Eric Hardt posted an image from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
He called American Airlines 'completely incompetent' because 'they are stranding thousands of passengers due to a "labor shortage."'
Angry passengers took to Twitter over the delays and cancellations during the course of the weekend
He added: 'They shouldn't sell tickets when they don't have staff for planes. I have had two flights cancelled. Waited 3 hours for no help. And I have Gold status.'
'NEVER FLYING @AmericanAir AGAIN after a cancellation now the flight the next day is DELAYED I just wanna get home,' @EdenVerity posted on Twitter along with a screenshot of her Snapchat post showing that she was flying out of DFW Airport.
'Thanks for canceling our 1pm flight at 7:45am. Really looking forward to spending 13 hours in the car with my family!', @carsmely commented.
'I will make sure that my family & friends never fly with you again. What you did to us and the hundreds other customers waiting for cancelled flights at DFW is unacceptable. The lowest standards of customer service in the flying industry! #aa', @madelamo commented with pictures of the long lines at DFW.
Other commenters attributed the airlines' delays and cancellations to the COVID vaccine mandate that forced company workers to quit or be terminated for not complying.
'If @AmericanAir can't staff their flights, they shouldn't sell seats on those flights! AA received $7.5 billion of taxpayer money for COVID, they posted big profits, and then cancelled 1,600 flights over 3 days??? #congressionalinvesitgatilon,' @richardbarney tweeted.
On October 21, the CEOs of American and Southwest Airlines said that they did not plan to terminate unvaccinated workers if they applied for an exemption.
The order for airline workers to be vaccinated came after the Biden administration's announcement of the mandate for federal contractors including AA.
American Airlines, who set the mandate for November 24, said that workers must apply for the medical or religious exemption from the vaccine if they wanted to continue working for the company.
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