"I wasn't going to drop $3,000 to get back," Moddelmog said. Kent Moddelmog ended up driving 700 miles (1,127 kilometers) with his 14-year-old son from Phoenix to Dublin, California, after Southwest cancelled their flight and he couldn't find a flight on a competing airline that wasn't exorbitantly priced. Others were just concerned about getting home - any way they could. "So we are frustrated and missing a day of work." He doubted that weather and air traffic controllers were the real issue. "My concern is we had no explanation really that was, I feel, very legitimate or believable," said Brian Gesch of Cedar Grove, Wisconsin, who was traveling through Reagan Washington National Airport with his wife. Some passengers were frustrated not just by flight delays but also the lack of a clear reason for them.
Southwest spokeswoman Brandy King said there was no evidence that would indicate the disruptions were caused by any sort of employee protest over vaccinations. Southwest was the only airline to report such a large percentage of cancelled and delayed flights over the weekend. The FAA said Sunday that "some airlines" were experiencing problems because of planes and crews being out of position. Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration acknowledged delays in part of Florida on Friday but pushed back against Southwest's air-traffic control explanation. There is a risk to fewer flights, however: It leaves Southwest with fewer options to accommodate stranded passengers. He said Southwest has already made significant cuts in its original schedules for November and December, "and if we think we need to do more, we will." After massive delays this summer, Southwest trimmed its fall schedule, which Van de Ven said had helped reduce delays in the past month. The staffing shortage is leading to fewer flights. we are still not where we want to be with staffing," especially pilots. In a video for employees, Southwest Chief Operating Officer Mike Van de Ven said that despite "a very aggressive hiring plan. Unions at both Southwest and American have also argued that management has been too slow to bring pilots back from leaves of absence that the airlines persuaded them to take during the pandemic, leaving them short-handed. He instead blamed the chaos of the past few days on Southwest's operation, which he said has become "brittle" and "cracks under the slightest pressure." He said the airline uses antiquated crew-scheduling technology that leads to cascading disruptions when flights are cancelled in one part of its network. Murray said pilots had not staged a sickout because of the vaccine mandate. "We are not anti-vaccination at all, but our pilots are extremely worried about how their medicals are going to be handled" if they are unable to fly, union president Casey Murray told The Associated Press. The union argued that Southwest must negotiate over the issue because it could involve sick leave or disability if pilots have a reaction to the vaccine. The widespread disruptions began shortly after the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, representing 9,000 pilots, asked a federal court on Friday to block the airline's order that all employees get vaccinated. Monday's cancellations amounted to 10% of Southwest's schedule, and at least 1,400 other flights, or roughly 40%, were delayed, according to the FlightAware tracking service. She said Southwest cancelled six consecutive flights on her over three days before she eventually decided to book a flight home to Las Vegas with Delta Air Lines. "You can't really relax when you're just sitting there waiting for your next flight to be canceled," said Vanessa Wheeler, who was biding her time at the San Jose, California, airport. The third straight day of cancelled and delayed flights left passengers stranded and steaming from California to the East Coast. The pilots union accused the company of a botched response to what it said would have been a minor challenge for other airlines.
Southwest Airlines cancelled more than 350 flights Monday following a weekend of major disruptions that it blamed on bad weather and air traffic control issues.
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