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.
President Joe Biden said Wednesday that a new plan to keep a key U.S. port open “24 hours a day, seven days a week” would relieve pressure on an overworked supply chain that has frustrated Americans and blossomed into a major economic shortcoming.
The decision to pare service highlights the difficulty that Southwest and other carriers have had adding workers since the summer, when demand surged more than expected after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted.
The Federal Aviation Administration proposed Thursday that flight attendants get 10 consecutive hours of rest between shifts. The proposal does not change the current 14-hour limit on a flight attendant’s work day.
The Indianapolis-based insurer, which left the program in 2018 after racking up huge losses, is jumping back in under a partnership with three hospital systems covering 45 of Indiana’s 92 counties.
Like other airlines, American encouraged thousands of workers to quit last year when air travel collapsed during the pandemic, only to be caught short-staffed this year when travel recovered faster than expected.
U.S. Sen. Todd Young, an Indiana Republican, is among six GOP senators on the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation who filed the FREIGHT Act.
The airline had eyed a slot at London’s Heathrow Airport for a flight to Indianapolis, but routes to Pittsburgh and Portland, Oregon, were the only two ultimately awarded.
Passengers should avoid face-to-face contact and surfaces that are frequently touched, and people sitting near to each other should try not to be unmasked at the same time during meals, according to the top medical adviser to the world’s airlines.
The U.S. airlines said they were working hard to accommodate as many passengers as possible, but the disruption comes during one of the busiest travel periods in years.
Omicron has intensified already significant staffing issues for airlines, which winnowed workforces in 2020 as air travel collapsed, only to be broadsided when vaccination rates jumped and millions of people felt comfortable flying again this year.
By late Saturday afternoon on the East Coast, more than 2,600 U.S. flights and nearly 4,600 worldwide had been canceled, according to tracking service FlightAware.
Airlines had asked the Federal Communications Commission to delay this week’s scheduled 5G rollout, saying the service, set to launch Tuesday, could interfere with electronics that pilots rely on.
At 6:30 p.m. Sunday, the number of cancellations stood at 2,560 nationwide and was slowly rising, according to FlightAware, a website that tracks commercial aviation. More than 2,700 flights were canceled Saturday.
