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Bloomberg
Southwest Airlines Co cancelled more than a quarter of its scheduled flights, citing issues with air traffic control and disruptive weather as it works to resume normal operations.
Some 1,018 flights — 28% of Southwest’s total for the day — were cancelled by the Dallas-based carrier as of 4:15 pm New York time on on October 10, according to the airline tracking site FlightAware.com. More than 500 other Southwest flights were delayed.
The disruptions started when weather conditions in Florida were compounded by air traffic control issues in the same region, a spokesperson for Southwest said.
Recovering from such issues is more difficult these days because there are fewer frequencies between cities in the carrier’s current schedule, the spokesperson said.
Other large US airlines reported far fewer disruptions
on October 10: FlightAware listed three canceled flights for Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines, nine for United Airlines and
143 for American Airlines.
The flight cancellations come amid concern over federally mandated vaccine requirements causing staffing shortages. Southwest pilots asked a court to temporarily block the company from enforcing the mandate until an existing lawsuit over alleged US labour law violations is resolved.