High Winds, Short Staffing Cause Hundreds Of Cancellations At American Airlines
FORT WORTH, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) — American Airlines has cancelled 427 flights Saturday, all of which are attributed to high winds and/or short staffing.
According to FlightAware, 195 of those flights were either coming to or traveling from DFW International Airport.
In a statement released by the Fort Worth-based airline, an official wrote that the high wind gusts in North Texas this week led to tight staffing.
"With additional weather throughout the system, our staffing begins to run tight as crew members end up out of their regular flight sequences."
North Texas saw two days of severe winds with gusts up to 50 mph on Thursday. This winds created limitations that reduced arrival capacity by more than half, the official said.
"This weather drove a large number of cancellations at DFW, as we could only use two runways instead of the usual five that handle our operation."
The official also wrote that the last days of October "will be challenging."
"To make sure we are taking care of our customers and providing scheduling certainty for our crew, we have adjusted our operation for the last few days this month by proactively canceling some flights. We are taking this measure to minimize any inconvenience as much as possible. Most of the customers impacted by these changes are being rebooked the same day, and we apologize for having to make these changes."
Although travelers are getting rebooked, some are still left frustrated.
"It's very frustrating," Vance Nelson said. "The last few times we've flown American Airlines we've had nothing but issues."
Customer Christopher Jordan said he just gave up when they moved him to another flight.
"Because once I went down to customer service… from C24 to C5, there's just tons of people in line from cancellation flights all day."
Moving forward, the airline official said more staff will be returning in the coming months. Eighteen-hundred flight attendants are returning Nov. 1 and the remainder are set to return by Dec. 1. Over 600 new-hire flight attendants are expected to be on property by the end of December as well.
Additional hiring is also underway, the statement said.
"We anticipate 4,000 new team members joining us across the system in the fourth quarter. The hiring of pilots and within Tech Ops continues to take place, and we already began ramping up hiring in Reservations so more team members will be in place for the holiday season."
FlightAware reports American Airlines has already cancelled 126 flights in and out of DFW Airport Sunday and more than 300 total.
Read the full statement from American Airlines:
"We continue to welcome back more and more customers as travel returns, and our team has done an incredible job delivering day in and day out.
Of course, not every moment has been easy and these few days to close out October will be challenging. This week saw two days of severe winds in DFW, with gusts of up to 50 mph on Thursday, creating crosswind limitations that sharply reduced arrival capacity by more than half. This weather drove a large number of cancellations at DFW, as we could only use two runways instead of the usual five that handle our operation.
With additional weather throughout the system, our staffing begins to run tight as crew members end up out of their regular flight sequences. To make sure we are taking care of our customers and providing scheduling certainty for our crew, we have adjusted our operation for the last few days this month by proactively canceling some flights. We are taking this measure to minimize any inconvenience as much as possible. Most of the customers impacted by these changes are being rebooked the same day, and we apologize for having to make these changes.
Our team members are continuing to take great care of our customers and we anticipate getting through this brief irregular ops period quickly with the start of a new month.
The good news moving forward is that we continue to staff up across our entire operation and we will see more of our team returning in the coming months. Specifically, for flight attendants we have nearly 1,800 returning from leave starting Nov. 1 — and the remainder coming back by Dec. 1 — and will have 600+ new hire flight attendants on property by end of December. Additionally, hiring for our Airports is well underway and we anticipate 4,000 new team members joining us across the system in the fourth quarter. The hiring of pilots and within Tech Ops continues to take place, and we already began ramping up hiring in Reservations so more team members will be in place for the holiday season.
Our team is extraordinarily resilient, and we cannot thank each and every team member enough for all you are doing to take care of our customers as well as each other."