Spirit Airlines apologizes as widespread flight cancellations persist for day four

Spirit Airlines said it “sincerely apologizes” for the widespread blackouts that have canceled hundreds of flights in the past four days. The airline’s problems, first reported over the weekend, are due to overlapping issues including staff shortages, extreme weather and system outages, the spokesperson said. of Spirit Airlines, Erik Hofmeyer.

Spirit canceled 165 flights on Sunday and 277 more on Monday, with every Spirit Airlines flight from an airport in Tampa, Fla. Canceled, according to FlightAware – a multinational aviation database. On Tuesday, the airline had canceled 60%, or 416, of scheduled flights for the day and 50% of flights on Wednesday.

“We sincerely regret the inconvenience this has caused,” Hofmeyer said in a statement Tuesday, noting that the crews “were working tirelessly to alleviate travel disruption.”

Over the past two days, severe storms have affected areas of southeastern Oregon, southwestern Idaho, northern Nevada, southwest, northeast and the Great Basin , according to the National Weather Service. Tornadoes accompanied by large hail have been reported in areas ranging from the Great Plains to the lower Missouri Valley, while flash flood warnings have been issued in various parts of the country.

On Tuesday morning, Spirit’s flight attendants union also reported a computer failure that prevented flight crew planners from changing flight schedules for more than an hour. Spirit confirmed the outage and said on Wednesday the airline had “implemented a more extensive network restart.”

Hofmeyer said Spirit is working to provide refunds and cancellations to the hundreds of travelers across the country who have been affected. On Wednesday, he said queues at airports had “decreased considerably” and cancellations “would gradually decrease in the days to come”.

But Spirit Airlines has not been the only airline affected by the recent problems.

On Sunday and Monday, American Airlines experienced widespread flight delays and cancellations due to “a prolonged severe weather event in Dallas Fort-Worth,” where the airline’s largest hub is located. An American spokesperson said on Tuesday that the nine-hour storm “brought sustained heavy rain, strong winds, lightning, microbursts and hail” to the region.

But according to internal American Airlines flight list data, obtained by CBS News on Tuesday, 231 flight cancellations were due to a shortage of plane pilots while 40 cancellations were due to weather conditions.

American canceled 283 scheduled flights on Sunday and another 355 on Monday. As of Tuesday evening, 11% of American Airlines flights were canceled and 21% were delayed.

“Our team members work tirelessly to take care of our customers,” the airline spokesperson said.

Cancellations and delays occur as leisure travel returns to pre-coronavirus pandemic rates. Between July 30 and August 1, the Transportation Security Administration said it screened around 6.4 million travelers compared to nearly 2.3 million screened during the same period in 2020, and around 7.8 million screened in 2019. .