Hundreds of flights have been cancelled by American Airlines due to a personnel shortfall.
According to reports, the airline cut its flight schedule by 1% in the first half of July due to bad weather in the south and other issues. According to a statement sent to The Post by the firm, the cut will “minimize surprises at the airport.”
“The first two weeks of June have delivered extraordinary weather to our main hubs, severely affecting our operations and creating delays, cancelled flights, and disruptions to crewmember schedules and our customers' plans,” according to the statement.
“This, combined with staffing difficulties at some of our vendors and the extraordinarily rapid ramp-up of client demand, has forced us to add additional resilience and assurance to our operation by altering a percentage of our scheduled flights through mid-July,” the statement continued.
“By altering flights in markets where we have many options for re-accommodation, we were able to impact the fewest number of customers possible.”
The flights that were cancelled this weekend made just a modest portion of the airline's entire itinerary.
According to CNBC, the 123 flights that were cancelled on Saturday accounted for 4% of all flights. According to the report, 180 flights were cancelled on Sunday, but the airline told the network that this represented only 3% of its total flights, including those run by regional carriers.
According to CNBC, half of Sunday's flights were cancelled due to personnel shortages, but no percentage was given for Saturday's flights. Other concerns, like maintenance, could have caused planned excursions to be cancelled.
The cancellations were initially reported on the View From the Wing website, which focuses on the travel sector, and stated they came as the firm tries to get “inactive pilots back online” following the coronavirus pandemic slowdown.
According to View from the Wing, the company was unable to lay off employees after obtaining federal stimulus funds. However, according to the report, American is still “only about halfway” to bringing back inactive pilots who must complete a five-day training course before becoming active.
According to the website, the shortages have primarily affected Boeing 737 aircraft.
News source: New York Post
