Southwest Airlines Cancels More Than 1K Flight On Sunday Blaming Air Traffic Control Issues

On Sunday, Southwest Airlines Co LUV announced the cancelation of more than 1,000 flights due to air traffic control issues and bad weather.

What Happened: The cancelations amount to 27% of the airline’s schedule, effecting thousands of customers with travel plans. The disruptions are occurring during a busy travel weekend ahead of the federal holiday Columbus Day on Monday, Oct.11.

“We experienced significant impact in the Florida airports [Friday] evening after an FAA-imposed air traffic management program was implemented due to weather and resulted in a large number of cancelations,” Alan Kasher, Executive Vice President of Daily Operations for Southwest, told staff in a note on Saturday.

“We are working hard behind the scenes to minimize challenges and fully recover the operation as we take care of displaced Crews and Customers as quickly as possible,” the company said in a statement issued on Saturday. Sunday's cancelations come after 808 Southwest flights were called off on Saturday.

American Airlines has canceled 63 flights, or 2% of its operation, while Spirit Airlines canceled 32 flights, or 4% of its flights, according to FlightAware.

Why It Matters: Twitter is abuzz with speculation that the cancelations were actually caused by a mass sickout by Southwest’s pilots in protest of the airline's support for a federal vaccine mandate. Although, The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, the union for Southwest’s pilots, said Saturday that none of its members were participating in a strike or other labor action.

Staffing shortages fueled hundreds of cancelations at Southwest over the summer. The airlines did not immediately comment on whether staffing shortfalls contributed to this weekend's problems.

Related Link: What 4 Analyst Ratings Have To Say About Southwest Airlines