WASHINGTON -- Spirit Airlines canceled 60% of its flights Wednesday and apologized to customers for severe disruptions in recent days, the latest in ongoing problems for air travelers as airlines struggle to bounce back from pandemic lows.
The union representing Spirit's flight attendants said the Florida-based company was addressing the meltdown by using procedures developed to recover from hurricanes.
Aviation industry experts said the busy summer travel season, combined with lingering effects from the pandemic, has complicated airline scheduling and added to logistical problems. Spirit's woes this week are the latest for an industry strained by rising demand on the heels of a pandemic-induced slump in travel.
Experts say some carriers are facing difficulties in finding pilots, flight attendants and ground crew to service flights as they recover from historic declines in air travel, leaving them vulnerable when more routine problems occur.
Jon Jager, an analyst at aviation data firm Cirium and a former schedule planner for a major U.S. carrier, said airlines are used to planning for events such as cyclical weather patterns. But staffing constraints -- as travel demand outpaces airline employees returning after the worst of the pandemic -- are creating difficulties in planning as the end of summer approaches.
"This is the last best chance for airlines to make revenue -- and the demand is there," Jager said. "People are wanting to travel. This causes pressure on the airline to maximize their schedule with fewer employees available to work due to pandemic staffing levels."
Spirit canceled more than 800 flights over two days this week, including 61% of its Tuesday flights, according to aviation firm FlightAware. The airline said many of those cancellations were part of a "thorough reboot of the network, allowing us to reassign our crews more efficiently and restore the network faster."
The company blamed "overlapping operational challenges" for the problems. It said a combination of bad weather, computer problems and staffing shortages caused "widespread irregularities" -- issues exacerbated by high levels of summer travel and fuller flights industry-wide.
The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, which represents nearly 50,000 flight attendants at 17 airlines, including those at Spirit, said the airline had an information technology failure Tuesday that prevented employees from using the crew scheduling system for more than an hour, compounding other challenges and stymieing efforts to rearrange flight plans for flight attendants.
American Airlines faced significant cancellations earlier this week from storms at its Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport hub.
"It was sustained wind, hail and rain. It was not a great situation for the operation," said American spokesman Curtis Blessing. "The result of that has been weather recovery for the last couple days."
Scores of diverted planes Sunday left crews out of position, he said, leaving lingering effects. "We're coming out of it," Blessing said.
FlightAware data indicates American canceled 377 flights, or 12% of its total, on Tuesday. It canceled more than 100 flights Wednesday.
Southwest also faced weather-related delays Tuesday, with 1,215 of its flights -- about one-third of them -- coming in late.