American Airlines Cancelling Hundreds Of Flights: What’s Going On?
As noted by View from the Wing, American Airlines is having some major operational issues, as the airline is canceling hundreds of flights over the course of a few days. The airline is even going so far as to reduce its July schedule, as the carrier is unable to reliably operate the number of flights that were initially scheduled.
Looking at published data, American has canceled over 500 flights over the previous four day period, and there’s no end in sight for these operational issues. Here are how many cancelations we’ve seen from American Airlines up until now:
- On Friday, June 18, 2021, American canceled 83 flights
- On Saturday, June 19, 2021, American canceled 123 flights
- On Sunday, June 20, 2021, American canceled 188 flights
- On Monday, June 21, 2021, American canceled 136 flights
- On Tuesday, June 22, 2021, American canceled 81 flights
- On Wednesday, June 23, 2021, American canceled 25 flights
I would expect the number of cancelations for today and beyond to continue to grow significantly, given that the underlying problem hasn’t been fixed, and also given the domino effect of flight cancelations.
With these numbers of cancelations, it’s not a good time to have a ticket booked on American Airlines. The phone hold times to speak to a reservations agent are many hours long, and I’ve heard of some very long lines at American Airlines customer service desks at airports.
American Airlines cutting 1 percent of July schedule
The operational issues don’t just impact flights this past weekend, but they’re expected to be ongoing. So American Airlines is proactively canceling roughly 1 percent of flights in July. By canceling these flights proactively, American hopes that last minute cancelations can be avoided next month, so that the airline can better take care of customers and employees, and minimize surprises at the airport.
American is strategically canceling flights, targeting markets where the smallest number of customers are impacted. This is done by primarily canceling flights in markets where there are multiple options for customers to be re-accommodated. So if you have any American flights in July, keep a close eye on your reservation, as you may notice a schedule change.
What’s the cause of American Airlines flight cancelations?
Officially, here’s how an American Airlines spokesperson explains the reasons for these cancelations:
“The first few weeks of June have brought unprecedented weather to our largest hubs, heavily impacting our operation and causing delays, canceled flights and disruptions to crew member schedules and our customers’ plans. That, combined with the labor shortages some of our vendors are contending with and the incredibly quick ramp up of customer demand, has led us to build in additional resilience and certainty to our operation by adjusting a fraction of our scheduled flying through mid-July.”
While American Airlines mentions “unprecedented” weather as the first reason, the much more significant issue involves labor shortages. That’s also evident because a majority of cancelations have listed “flight crew unavailable” as the reason for the cancelation. What exactly is going on there?
Cancelations are primarily focused on the Boeing 737 fleet, which suggests that the crewing issues are primarily related to pilots rather than flight attendants (since pilots are rated on a specific type of aircraft, while flight attendants are generally trained on all mainline aircraft).
The best explanation I’ve heard up until now is that American is having pilot shortages that are primarily impacting the 737 fleet. Specifically, the airline is experiencing delays with getting pilots certified on the Boeing 737, after many pilots are being switched to this fleet, or otherwise just took a leave of absence during the pandemic. Also keep in mind that the number of 737s flying recently increased significantly, as American brought its 737 MAX fleet back into service.
Admittedly the pandemic has been extremely challenging for airlines logistically, and that particularly impacts pilot staffing. That’s because when airlines grounded their planes at the start of the pandemic, many pilots ended up being retrained on new types of aircraft (based on seniority), and that’s a time consuming process that doesn’t happen overnight. It can take weeks for a pilot to get certified on a new aircraft type, and at the moment airlines are having to retrain more pilots than ever before.
We saw Delta have several operational meltdowns over holidays during the pandemic due to pilot shortages, but other than that there have been surprisingly few problems for American or United.
But that’s not the only labor shortage, based on my understanding. American is apparently short staffed in just about every way at this point, including with rampers, gate agents, and more.
I do find it interesting that American’s operation fell apart in mid-June, rather than over a specific major holiday, like Thanksgiving, July 4th, Christmas, etc., when airline operations are typically pushed to the limit. This clearly shows how much demand for travel has picked up in recent weeks, and it’s reflected in the number of travelers being screened by the TSA.
At least in the case of this past weekend’s operational issues, one also can’t rule out that some people may have called in sick for Father’s Day, especially as more people are starting to be able to live their lives again.
Bottom line
American Airlines is having some serious operational issues. The airline has canceled over 500 flights over the past four days, and the issues are continuing. We should expect more cancelations over the coming days, and on top of that American will reduce its July schedule by around 1 percent, to get out ahead of these issues.
These cancelations seem to primarily come down to labor shortages, with the biggest problem being a lack of qualified pilots (due to pilots not being trained to fly the correct aircraft), but there are also shortages with other labor groups.
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Ken Hughes
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Don’t forget the four British Airlines pilots who died after being jabbed.
What is the vaccination policy of American Airways?
How many pilots have they and how many have been jabbed.
How many pilots have died since June?
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Ken Hughes
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‘and how many who have died were jabbed?
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Barry
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This makes you wonder how many airlines have been following the BA story and are now wondering about all these deaths. The whole airline industry is very closely tied because of the world wide regs. So it is not surprising to see them being nervous about it.
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Paul Kalff
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According to some reports…..trip-7s are now being used for domestic flights….the 73 crews have to get through the “currency” program and check flights. American was asleep at the wheel and did not energize the quals programs in sufficient time…..it has been reactive, not proactive. Anyone with half a sense could see large increases in traffic coming once mask restrictions were modified and folks were to freely move about. But CNN and the other progressive mouthpieces who advocate for increased Federal and State government control of our lives cowed some of the airlines into submission….obviously, American was on IFR and could not see on a clear day.
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Tom O
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Don’t think I can agree with you. This too closely follows the blood clot issues cropping up. Seems to me that airlines were pushing towards wanting all passengers vaxxed not that long ago, and probably had an internal policy towards vaxxing for its people. I really don’t think that the sudden unmasking – which hasn’t shown up any other place in the economy – has anything to do with this issue. Most of the useful idiots are still wearing their masks. It is going to be interesting. I seem to recall that Delta was going to require all its pilots to be vaxxed. I wonder how far that went before they changed their minds.
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Tom O
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As a follow up, they may be retraining across platforms so as to insure they have an unvaxxed pilot on board with a vaxxed pilot – just in case.
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wotsmokolit
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Time to bring out the flying cars…it maybe cost-effective now.
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Mark Tapley
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If the airlines had not been so far up the Zionists ass with the mask mandates maybe they wouldn’t have so many problems. The elite have been caught by many people junketing around on their private jets with no face diapers. And what about all those CO2 emissions. More than once the taxpayers have bailed out the airlines so they could pay off the big stockholders and continue the multi million dollar executive pay and stock options. They should have been allowed to go bankrupt.. Some one would come in and pick up their assets.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/4M6xQpxZs7if/
https://www.bitchute.com/video/OKRNWT8UbcHL/
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Christian Loosli
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Hi, intresting article. Here in Europe in the UK they starting to not let vacced client on the flight any more. Pilots are now no more required to get it. Here in France a women bought a ticket and booked the Hotel and was required to get the vaccin and when she wanted to get on the voyage the travelagency told her she could not go because she was vacced. Should wait for two monts and she was furious and hat to fight to get the money reimboursed. The ecologist migth like that, since most travellers got the shot early, just in case. Postponing and delaying and not rushing can become live a saving virtue.
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Mark Tapley
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All of these problems will be eliminated when the U.N. bankers Sustainable Development Initiative Agenda 2030-21 is implemented as eugenicist Bill and (((Klauss))) “You will own nothing” use the phony climate change and fake virus to move the plantation livestock into their Neo feudal technocracy. You won’t need to worry about going anywhere but in your little area as you will exceed your energy quotas. Just eat your vegan diet in your high rise shit hole and “be happy.”
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Johnny
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After the news that Vaccinated Pilots have died, I won’t be surprised if the real reason is Pilot refusing to be Vaccinated & thus the shortage!!
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aaron
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seriously johnny?
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Karma Singh
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Russia has imposed a total ban on vaccinated air crew and passengers boarding flights.
Looks like the board of United has just found out why.
Blessed be
Karma Singh
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K Kaiser
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@Karma Singh
Could you possibly provide a reference to this claim?
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