Southwest cancels hundreds more flights, denies sickout
DALLAS — Southwest Airlines canceled more than 350 flights Monday following a weekend of major disruptions that it blamed on bad weather and air traffic control issues. The pilots union accused the company of a botched response to what it said would have been a minor challenge for other airlines.
The third straight day of canceled and delayed flights left passengers stranded and steaming from California to the East Coast.
“You can’t really relax when you’re just sitting there waiting for your next flight to be canceled,” said Vanessa Wheeler, who was biding her time at the San Jose, California, airport. She said Southwest canceled six consecutive flights on her over two days before she eventually decided to book a flight home to Las Vegas with Delta Air Lines. She vowed to never fly Southwest again.
Monday’s cancellations amounted to 10% of Southwest’s schedule. Southwest Airlines canceled five flights scheduled to arrive or depart the Albuquerque International Sunport on Monday, FlightAware reported. That amounted to about 11% of Southwest flights into and out of the Sunport.
The five cancellations included three departing flights and two arriving flights, the website reported. No other airlines had cancellations Monday at the Sunport.
Southwest also had 14 delayed flights on Monday, or 31% of all flights arriving or departing the Sunport, FlightAware reported.
The widespread disruptions began shortly after the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, representing 9,000 pilots, asked a federal court on Friday to block the airline’s order that all employees get vaccinated. The union argued that Southwest must negotiate over the issue because it could involve sick leave or disability if pilots have a reaction to the vaccine.
“We are not anti-vaccination at all, but our pilots are extremely worried about how their medicals are going to be handled” if they are unable to fly, union president Casey Murray told The Associated Press. Murray said pilots had not staged a sickout because of the vaccine mandate.
He instead blamed the chaos of the past few days on Southwest’s operation, which he said has become “brittle” and “cracks under the slightest pressure.” He said the airline uses antiquated crew-scheduling technology that leads to cascading disruptions when flights are canceled in one part of its network.