Southwest Airways has cancelled over 2,400 flights for Tuesday, roughly 61% of its whole schedule, in accordance with the most recent figures from FlightAware. The unhealthy information comes after Southwest cancelled over 2,900 flights on Monday, and this could possibly be just the start for the airline’s woes, with a number of reviews noting Southwest doesn’t count on to renew a standard schedule till December 31.
Southwest administration instructed the Wall Avenue Journal it was “rebalancing the airline,” and insisted it was “full staffed” within the lead as much as this previous weekend, which included Christmas. The airline steered the fault was unhealthy climate, however didn’t publicly clarify why it was the airline with probably the most cancellations.
“We had been absolutely staffed and ready for the approaching vacation weekend when the extreme climate swept throughout the continent,” Southwest instructed the Journal.
Crew members who known as to get rescheduled for cancelled flights overloaded Southwest’s telephone system, in accordance with a number of sources online. Southwest merely didn’t have sufficient employees to reply the telephones and rebook each pilots and flight attendants because the cancellations snowballed throughout the nation.
The horror tales on social media are frankly too numerous to depend at this point, as can be anticipated with so many cancellations over a busy vacation interval.
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An inside firm memo purporting to be from December 21 has additionally been leaked to social media claiming too many Southwest employees have known as in sick over the vacations. Gizmodo couldn’t instantly confirm the authenticity of the memo, and whereas Southwest administration in Denver has reportedly demanded that employees who’ve known as out sick get a health care provider’s observe in individual, closely suggesting they suppose individuals are abusing the system, it’s fully doable that most people who’re absent from work are literally unwell.
Whereas many individuals have spent 2022 attempting to fake the covid-19 pandemic is over, the U.S. continues to be averaging over 60,000 new instances of the illness per day, in accordance with the New York Occasions. The U.S. is at present averaging about 322 deaths from covid-19 per day, the loss of life toll equal of a 9/11 terrorist assault each ten days.
And it’s not simply covid-19. There are a selection of respiratory diseases which have seen a resurgence this winter, together with the flu and RSV. And there’s severe concern that strep A infections are spreading quickly in Europe.
The U.S. Division of Transportation launched an announcement Monday evening expressing concern about Southwest’s “unacceptable price of cancellations.”
“The Division will study whether or not cancellations had been controllable and if Southwest is complying with its customer support plan,” the federal company defined on Twitter.
Southwest has waived charges for rebooking between now and January 2, however good luck truly getting a flight on the airline, given the chaos that’s unfolded.
“Prospects holding any Southwest reservation from Sunday, December 25 via Monday, January 2, might rebook within the authentic class of service or journey standby (inside 14 days of their authentic date of journey between the unique city-pairs and in accordance with our lodging procedures) with out paying any extra cost,” the airline says on its web site.
Should you’re flying Southwest this week, good luck.
