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People line up at the Spirit Airlines counter at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport on August 5, 2021 in Houston, Texas.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images
The causes of the massive Spirit Airlines flight cancellations that derailed the summer vacations of tens of thousands of customers this week have been brewing for more than a month, CEO Ted Christie said.
A combination of flight delays throughout July, staff shortages, technology issues and an increase in travel that surprised most airline executives, culminated with more than 1,700 flights canceled since. Sunday, some days over half of Spirit’s schedule.
And the troubles are not over for travelers. Christie said the carrier had to cancel additional flights over the next few days to regain a foothold.
“There are definitely some angry people out there,” he told reporters Thursday evening. “At the moment, all I can say is that we are so sorry for what happened.”
The chaos enraged customers stranded at airports and sparked furious messages online, presenting Christie with one of his biggest tests since becoming CEO on New Years Day 2019.
“It’s a huge blow to everyone,” Christie said.
Chronic delays throughout July snowballed, leading to staff shortages as shifts expired, reaching the maximum time they could legally work each day, he said. It got considerably worse over the weekend and in the days after.
“We couldn’t face it,” Christie said. He estimated that “tens or hundreds of thousands” of customers have been affected by Spirit’s disruption and said it was too early to estimate the financial impact on the company.
As of Thursday alone, 446 Spirit flights were canceled, or 56% of its operations.
A sharp rebound in summer travel created headaches for summer travelers as airlines and their contractors faced staff shortages associated with the usual disruptive summer storms.
Spirit, based in Miramar, Fla., Has improved its reliability in recent years, and in 2017 it turned to Walt Disney’s leadership and professional training affiliate, the Disney Institute, to help improve its customer service.
“We will do everything we can to regain the trust of our guests and the traveling public. We believe we can do it,” Christie said on the call Thursday. He said the airline was giving affected customers cash refunds.
Looking back, Spirit should have canceled more flights earlier to give it time to recalibrate, Christie said. Instead, the airline tried to maintain flights to cater for a large number of customers, many of whom were flying for the first time since the start of the pandemic.
The airline predicted last month that it would fly nearly 11% more in the third quarter compared to the same period in 2019, a much larger rebound than most airlines.
Christie said he and other executives are examining how to add more backup staff, faster responses to operational issues, and better technology.
“We start to take the turn and put our legs under us where we can start to rebuild where we were before,” Christie said.
Correction: This story has been updated to correct a title.
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