Southwest Airlines has cancelled hundreds of more flights on Monday and delayed countless others, continuing a reported staffing shortage situation that has customers frustrated no matter what the official cause of it ends up being.
The tallies from the weekend alone according to Associated Press were 1,900 canceled flights. On Monday morning their estimates are another 365 cancellations, with "more than 600" delays otherwise.
(At the time of writing the current spread by FlightAware is 363 cancellations and 773 delays.)
The situation visibly seemed to pop up for Southwest Airlines in particular. No other airlines have reported issues of this magnitude.
Social media chatter raged at the official channels set up by the company, as hundreds of disgruntled customers had their travel plans drastically altered. In the case of families, it meant their kids sleeping on the airport floor.
The FAA's official Twitter account pushed back against some of the earlier reasons given by Southwest Airlines for the disputed chaos: "No FAA air traffic staffing shortages have been reported since Friday."
No FAA air traffic staffing shortages have been reported since Friday.
— The FAA ?? (@FAANews) October 10, 2021
Flight delays & cancellations occurred for a few hours Friday PM due to widespread severe weather, military training, & limited staffing in one area of the Jacksonville en route center.
(1/2)
Alongside the immediate confusion came the larger curiosity about what's causing Southwest's massive outage problem. A common answer is that pilots are protesting the company's COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
That was the reaction Sunday evening by Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
Southwest Airlines Pilots Association denied any official work action taking place on their part even though they have ongoing litigation against the company about the mandatory jab measures.
"The weekend challenges were not a result of Employee demonstrations," a Southwest Airlines spokesperson told the New York Post.
However, the company's CEO is admitting Monday morning they're "short on workers, especially flight crews.
$LUV CEO says they are short on workers, especially flight crews
— Market Rebellion (@MarketRebels) October 11, 2021
The weekend of controversy hit Southwest Airlines stock prices on Monday.
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