SouthWest Airlines was enveloped in chaos this weekend as it had to cancel thousands of flights around the country due to what they claimed was bad weather and staffing shortages:
Here’s more:
CNBC – Southwest Airlines canceled more than 1,800 flights this weekend, disrupting the travel plans of thousands of customers and stranding flight crews — the airline blamed the meltdown on a combination of bad weather, air traffic control problems and its own shortage of available staff.
“I know this is incredibly difficult for all of you, and our Customers are not happy,” Alan Kasher executive vice president of daily flight operations told staff in a note on Sunday, which was seen by CNBC.
The airline said initial problems on bad weather and an “FAA-imposed air traffic management program” were to blame.
“Although we were staffed for the weekend, we could not anticipate the significant disruption that was created from unexpected ATC issues and bad weather across our Florida stations,” said Kasher.
Other airlines canceled relatively few flights. Southwest did not comment on the disparity.
While CNBC says 1,800 flights, CNN reported this morning that it was over 2,000.
Ted Cruz tweeted that the believes this has everything to do with Biden’s illegal vaccine mandate:
Joe Biden’s illegal vaccine mandate at work!
Suddenly, we’re short on pilots & air traffic controllers.#ThanksJoe https://t.co/wviOzLt7Iv
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) October 10, 2021
According to Newsmax, these delays occurred right after a pilot’s union asked a court to invalidate Southwest’s vaccine mandate:
On Friday, the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association challenged the company’s mandate inside a Dallas federal court. The union claimed the policy “unlawfully imposes new conditions of employment and the new policy threatens termination of any pilot not fully vaccinated by December 8, 2021,” according to Bloomberg.
The union said it was it was aware of the “operational difficulties” affecting the airline but “we can say with confidence that our Pilots are not participating in any official or unofficial job actions.”
Southwest is denying that the vaccine mandate is the cause of this, calling it “unfounded rumors and speculation.”
Yeah, right. Based on the reporting above that Southwest was the only airline to cancel thousands of flights this weekend, it sounds like to me they are trying to hide the truth to avoid a mass exodus of their customers to other airlines.
Also, I ran across this video from a few days ago of an airline pilot explaining how his career is being threatened because of the vaccine mandate and how we must fight back against these mandates because FREEDOM:
This is the single bravest thing I have seen in years. God bless these Pilots. The heroes we need right now ??✈️ pic.twitter.com/ZxuRseDoAq
— Benny (@bennyjohnson) October 11, 2021
