American Airlines Cancels Hundreds of Flights Due to Staffing Shortages

American Airlines canceled hundreds of flights over the weekend because of staffing shortages and additional issues, challenges the carrier is grappling with as travel demand increases.

CNBC reported Sunday:

About 6% of the airline’s mainline schedule, or 190 flights, were canceled on Sunday, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware. The airline said that equaled about 3% of its total flights, including those operated by regional carriers. An internal company list, which was viewed by CNBC, showed about half of those were because of unavailable flight crews. On Saturday, about 4% of its mainline schedule, or 123 flights, were canceled and 106 on Monday, FlightAware showed.

The airline is reportedly cutting down its schedule by around one percent through mid-July to ease some of the disruptions, some of which the company said were a result of inclement weather at the Charlotte and Dallas/Fort Worth international airport hubs in early June.

American Airlines spokeswoman Sarah Jantz explained in a statement:

The bad weather, combined with the labor shortages some of our vendors are contending with and the incredibly quick ramp up of customer demand, has led us to build in additional resilience and certainty to our operation by adjusting a fraction of our scheduled flying through mid-July. We made targeted changes with the goal of impacting the fewest number of customers by adjusting flights in markets where we have multiple options for re-accommodation.

Twitter users expressed frustration regarding their canceled flights over the weekend.

“Too bad people can’t see their fathers when you cancel flights all the time,” one person wrote.

In April, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) expressed shock when American Airlines put out a statement opposing an election integrity bill, Senate Bill 7, as the CEO admittedly did not review the legislation, Breitbart News reported.

“I am stunned that American Airlines would put out a statement saying ‘we are strongly opposed to this bill’ [Senate Bill 7],” he said, “just minutes after their government relations representative called my office and admitted that neither he nor the American Airlines CEO had actually read the legislation.”

Meanwhile, the airline announced in September crews would be allowed to wear Black Lives Matter pins on their uniforms while on duty, according to Breitbart News.