Over the weekend, more than 12,000 flights were cancelled or delayed, stranding hundreds of thousands of passengers at airports across the country, according to airlines, who blamed congested air traffic on bad weather in Florida and technical issues.
During the peak of spring break holiday travel, airlines cancelled almost 3,500 domestic flights this weekend and delayed thousands more.
As of Sunday afternoon, more than 3,400 flights had been cancelled and 8,800 planes had been delayed, according to FlightAware, which records domestic air travel in the country.
Southwest Airlines, the country’s largest domestic carrier, cancelled 520 flights on Saturday and 398 on Sunday.
Storms in Florida were also to fault, according delayed the firm, because between 40 and 50 percent of its flights pass through the Sunshine State on any given day.
“Intermittent performance issues following routine nightly repair of some of [its] backend technologies,” the airline explained.
Hundreds of flights were cancelled by JetBlue and other major US airlines over the weekend.
AP
“We apologise deeply for any disruption caused to our guests and express our gratitude to our personnel who are working tirelessly to make amends,” the airline said in a statement.
“We’ll keep customers updated if their journey with us today is delayed due to the now-resolved issues.”
Spirit Airlines, which has its hub in Fort Lauderdale, cancelled 27% of its flights on Saturday and 27% on Sunday.
According to FlightAware, JetBlue cancelled a quarter of its Sunday flights and 15% of its Saturday flights.
In an email, a JetBlue representative said, “Severe weather in the Southeast and several air traffic control delay initiatives have had substantial impacts on the industry.”
“Today’s cancellations will assist us in resetting our operation and safely repositioning our employees and aircraft.”
The Weather Channel is a television network that broadcasts weather forecast
On Saturday, American Airlines cancelled 364 flights and 211 more on Sunday.
Alaska Airlines seems to be having its own problems.
Additional than 37,000 customers have been affected by weekend flight cancellations since Friday, according to the airline, and more cancellations are possible.
The airline didn’t disclose why the flights were cancelled, but it did note in a statement that it was due to contract disputes with its pilots.
Off-duty pilots demonstrated in a number of US locations on Friday in protest of delayed negotiations. For the past three years, they have been without a new contract.
In a Friday press statement, the pilots union stated, “Alaska Airlines failed to properly plan for growing travel demand and take the actions necessary to ensure it recruited and kept pilots.”
With the use of post wires
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