American Airlines cancels more than 600 flights on Sunday


The airline has canceled more than 1,500 flights since Friday as it deals with weather issues and staff shortages that began last week.

“With additional weather conditions throughout the system, our staff is starting to run out as crew members find themselves outside of their regular flight sequences,” American said in a statement to CNN on Saturday.

Two days of high winds at Dallas-Fort Worth, its largest hub, severely reduced arrival capacity, the company said.

The airline canceled 543 flights on Saturday according to flight tracking site FlightAware. American said 4,967 flights were scheduled for Saturday.

On Friday, FlightAware showed that 738 flights, nearly a quarter of American’s main operations, were delayed and 342 flights were canceled.

As air travel plunged in early 2020, airlines offered employee buybacks and early retirement packages to keep costs down. As they try to hire or rehire workers, downtime has become more frequent.

American expects more flight crews to return during the holiday season. The airline said 1,800 flight attendants would return from leave on Monday and more would be back to work by December 1. The airline said it would also increase hiring in the fourth quarter.

As the demand for air travel increases, other airlines have also struggled to resume normal operations. Southwest experienced an operational crisis a weekend earlier in October, canceling more than 2,000 weekend flights.

The company blamed the move on air traffic control issues and limited staff in Florida as well as bad weather, saying it was “more difficult and prolonged to return to normal” due to schedule reductions and of personnel implemented during the pandemic.

This is a developing story.

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