Southwest Canceled Over 1,800 Flights Last Weekend

This may be why your travel was delayed.

Courtesy of Southwest Airlines
Courtesy of Southwest Airlines

If you were one of the many people just trying to get from point A to point B this weekend, you might have noticed there were extensive delays, especially if you were flying Southwest Airlines. That's because the airline canceled hundreds of flights over the weekend.

The New York Times reported that Southwest canceled 800 flights on Saturday and over 1,000 flights on Sunday. In total, 24% of all flights from Southwest were canceled on Saturday and 28% on Sunday. The airline cited bad weather in Florida and air traffic control issues as reasons for the delay, but no other airline reported the same issues or canceled nearly as many flights. The Federal Aviation Administration said there weren't any flight cancellations due to air traffic control issues since Friday afternoon.

The airline initially denied that staffing shortages contributed to the cancellations. Still, in a statement on Monday to CNN, the company acknowledged that fewer staff members made it more difficult to handle delays and cancellations.

In August, Southwest announced plans to cut flights this fall in the hopes of preventing delays and improving service for the flights that are in place. The announcement came when the Airline announced that it was "aggressively hiring" to meet urgent staffing needs.

Last week Southwest implemented its vaccine mandate for employees, and some people speculated that a pilot walkout in response to the requirement was the true cause of the flight cancellations. The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association denied that was the cause, instead citing "poor planning" from management as the cause.

As of Monday morning, the airline canceled more than 300 more flights due to ongoing issues.