American Airlines canceled hundreds of additional flights on Nov. 1 as the company struggled with problems it attributed to high winds in Texas.
Some 261 flights were axed early Monday, according to internal data obtained by The Epoch Times. Nearly 1,000 were canceled on Sunday.
“Better than yesterday but still bad,” Capt. Dennis Tajer, a spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, told The Epoch Times in an email on Monday morning.
The union represents pilots who fly for American Airlines.
The issues started late last week when the Dallas-Fort Worth area was hit by wind gusts of up to 50 miles per hour, David Seymour, American’s chief operating officer, told employees in a memorandum obtained by The Epoch Times.
The weather drove cancellations and led to staffing shortages because crew members ended up outside of their regular flight sequences, he added.
An American spokeswoman told The Epoch Times in an email that the issues were not related to American’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, a view echoed by Tajer.
American said the problems would be resolved soon, aided by workers returning from leave and a hiring blitz across various positions.
The union said the weather did cause problems but blamed American for the bulk of the cancellations, noting that the weather was clear practically all weekend.
“Management is failing to connect pilots and flight attendants to the airplanes many days after the storm passes,” Tajer said.
American did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.
In addition to the cancellations, about 166 American flights were delayed on Nov. 1, according to tracking website FlightAware.
Southwest also canceled a small number of flights. Some 79 were axed Monday, representing 2 percent of the flights scheduled for the day, with another 4 percent delayed, according to FlightAware.
Southwest did not respond to a request for comment.
A spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration told The Epoch Times on Sunday that the agency was aware the cancelations but referred comment to the airlines.
Jack Phillips contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times
