DENVER (KDVR) — Update 2:00 p.m. 10/11/21: Southwest Airlines shared the following statement on the cancellations and delays from over the weekend that have spilled into Monday.
Southwest Airlines extends a tremendous apology to our Customers and Employees for the flight cancellations and delays which occurred over the weekend and on Monday.
On Friday evening, the airline ended the day with numerous cancellations, primarily created by weather and other external constraints, which left aircraft and Crews out of pre-planned positions to operate our schedule on Saturday. Unfortunately, the out-of-place aircraft and continued strain on our Crew resources created additional cancelations across our point-to-point network that cascaded throughout the weekend and into Monday.
While we do not have specific airport numbers to share, Southwest Teams have been working diligently to restore stability to the network, and we are experiencing less disruptions on Monday. We hope to restore our full schedule as soon as possible. As a note, the operational challenges were not a result of Southwest Employee demonstrations, as some outlets are reporting.
To every Customer that experienced a cancellation or delay, Southwest offers our sincerest regret regarding disrupted travel plans, and we look forward to a future opportunity to demonstrate our safe, reliable, friendly, and legendary Southwest Hospitality – something that Customers should always expect from Southwest Airlines.
If Customers require assistance from Southwest, they can utilize one of the airline’s self-service options for convenience or Contact Us via one of the methods listed on Southwest.com.
Southwest Airlines
Original Story: Southwest Airlines canceled hundreds more flights Monday following a weekend of major service disruptions.
According to Flightaware, the carrier has canceled 348 flights Monday and delayed another 271 flights.
There are a total of 43 Southwest Airlines flights canceled at Denver International Airport as of 2:00 p.m. and 155 Southwest Airlines flights delayed.
The Dallas-based airline had blamed air traffic control issues and weather for its weekend “operational challenges” that saw over 1,000 canceled flights on Sunday alone. Southwest Airlines was the only airline to report the issues on that scale.
Southwest has struggled all summer with high numbers of delayed and canceled flights. In August, it announced it was trimming its September schedule by 27 flights a day, or less than 1%, and 162 flights a day, or 4.5% of the schedule, from early October through Nov. 5.
Last week, Southwest became the latest airline to announce it was imposing a vaccine mandate on its staff. The Dallas-based company said its workers must be fully vaccinated by Dec. 8 in order to remain at the airline. Employees can seek approval to skip the shots due to medical or religious reasons.
One analyst said a possible reason for the weekend outages may be a work slowdown by pilots who oppose the mandate. The pilots union denied it was part of a job action.
In premarket trading, shares of Southwest Air slipped 2.6%.