Why Southwest Airlines Cancelled 1,800 Flights?

There are always some uncertainties in anything, nothing is perfect on its own. But, when the public doesn’t get a proper justification as to why certain things have happened, then guys, get ready for the chaos. The same scenario was witnessed by us in the weekend that followed us.

Southwest Airlines canceled over 1,800 flights without any prior announcement. The airlines have blamed the bad weather and winds for the delay or cancellation, but the public and diplomats are not satisfied with the response. In this article, we will be talking about the cancellation of these flights only.

Southwest Airlines

Southwest airlines are one of the major airlines of Southwest and the world’s largest low-cost carrier. The airline serves over 121 destinations in the United States and 10 outside the US. As of 2018, the airlines had carried the most domestic passengers among other airlines.

On the following weekend, the airlines canceled about 1,800 flights. According to FlightAware, there are about 28% of its scheduled flights. The airlines are saying that the cause of this cancellation is the bad weather and air traffic over Florida but the public is demanding a pure and transparent explanation over the same.

Possible reasons for the cancellation

In an interview with Good America, the CEO of Southwest airlines, Garg Kelly has answered the questions concerning the cancellations.

Kelly told that there were no air traffic issues over the weekend, the setbacks and initial interruptions from the Florida airport contributed to the issue.

He says that any industry expert would know how much time and effort does it take to manage all the flights where they need to be and the coordination with the staff is also not a piece of cake.

His whole interview is put on the YouTube channel of Good America.

But, as if the experts, the root cause of the problem is not with the weather or the Florida airport, but with the new vaccine mandate of the airlines. The airlines have announced that all the staff members must be vaccinated by 5th December or they will end up losing their job.

When asked about the shortage of staff due to this new order, Kelly took a strong charge. He said that there’s no proper evidence of that. The staff is working very hard and he is proud of them. This vaccine mandate is certainly controversial but it is the Government’s order and we are implying that. He said that they are urging their employees to get vaccinated and they are doing their best to meet the deadlines. And they are ready to do anything for the staff, none of them shall be fired over this concern.

But, experts are claiming that the weather conditions are the same for everyone then, how come American airlines canceled only 66 flights on Saturday whereas Southwest airlines did this to 1,800.

Apologies from the Southwest Airlines

Southwest airlines have put an apology on their Twitter page for the inconvenience caused and that they are doing their best for our service.

 

This is all that has come out, so far, regarding the flight cancellations by Southwest Airlines. The actual reason is yet being discovered and we may expect an inquiry on the same.