FORT WORTH, Texas — American Airlines canceled much than 740 flights Sunday, which represented implicit 14% of its full trips for the day.
It’s been a tumultuous Halloween play for the airline, with the institution canceling much than 1,600 flights of its 16,073 full trips since Friday.
In a statement, the hose cited upwind arsenic the crushed for the cancelations. Specifically, a spokesperson said precocious winds person been a occupation successful Texas, wherever the institution is headquartered.
“This week saw 2 days of terrible winds successful DFW, with gusts of up to 50 mph connected Thursday, creating crosswind limitations that sharply reduced accomplishment capableness by much than half,” wrote the company. “This upwind drove a ample fig of cancellations astatine DFW, arsenic we could lone usage 2 runways alternatively of the accustomed 5 that grip our operation.”
The hose says the upwind issues person impacted its staffing, which has already been constricted arsenic it recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“With further upwind passim the system, our staffing begins to tally choky arsenic unit members extremity up retired of their regular formation sequences,” said the company. “To marque definite we are taking attraction of our customers and providing scheduling certainty for our crews, we person adjusted our cognition for the past fewer days this period by proactively canceling immoderate flights.”
The institution says it’s taking these measures to minimize inconveniences.
“Most of the customers impacted by these changes are being rebooked the aforesaid day, and we apologize for having to marque these changes,” the institution wrote.
Along with the cancelations, much than 160 American Airlines flights had been delayed by astir 12 p.m. ET Sunday, and 437 were delayed connected Saturday, according to the website flightaware.com.