Nearly one week after Winter Storm Fern began walloping a large swath of the United States with heavy snow, ice, and subzero windchills, one airline is still trying to get its operations back on track.
Texas-based American Airlines is still reeling from the disruptive storm, which brought dangerous ice to its home hub at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) and snarled the carrier’s flights around the country.
Through Tuesday, January 27, the carrier canceled more than 10,000 flights, as five of its nine largest hubs were severely impacted. Operations appeared to be improving somewhat as of Thursday, January 29, but the airline still had a total of 631 delays nationwide, with more than 250 delays occurring at DFW, according to FlightAware data.
Earlier in the week, American’s Chief Customer Officer Heather Garboden issued an apology to customers and tried to reassure them that the carrier’s teams were “all hands on deck,” doing everything they could to get flight schedules back on track.
But cascading issues with computer systems and staffing have nonetheless caused flight disruptions to continue to ripple throughout the carrier’s network, leaving passengers, travel advisors, and the airline’s own crew members fed up.
Flight Attendants Sleeping In Airport Terminals
Bearing the brunt of the storm delays have been American’s flight attendants, some of whom have been lost in the airline’s crew management system as the airline’s computers are reportedly not handling the breakdown in operations. As a result, some crew members have been stranded, with some forced to spend the night in airport terminals.
“Flight attendants are displaced due to the winter storm and can’t get hotel rooms,” one flight attendant wrote in a Facebook post on Tuesday. “They’re on hold for hours trying to get through to tracking to find out what to do after their flight cancels. We used to have a hotel department, but now it’s a third-party source or it’s ‘handle it yourself and we’ll reimburse you’ eventually, maybe, one day. Meanwhile, pilots are taken care of, or can afford to pay for $500 rooms during a winter storm. It’s sad to see how bad things are today.”
Adding insult to injury is the low profit sharing the airline announced this week for its crewmembers, after annual earnings missed Wall Street expectations. As a result of the lackluster profit margins, the airline’s flight attendant union called for American’s CEO Robert Isom to be replaced in a letter on Wednesday. “Quarter after quarter, executives leave employees to carry the weight of their mismanagement while American falls further behind,” the union wrote. “As the entire industry leaves American Airlines in the dust, it is time for new leadership and a new vision for American Airlines.”
Passengers moving through Charlotte Douglas International Airport. (Photo Credit: Patrick Clarke)
Travel Advisors Left ‘Scrambling’
The crew tracking issues stemming from the snowstorm have created additional delays, with some flight attendants and pilots timing out and hitting their maximum work hours before mandated rest periods just minutes before delayed flights were scheduled to take off.
Tyson Wharton, travel advisor and owner of Sioux Empire Travel, had clients try multiple times to return on American flights to the U.S. from a wedding in Punta Cana. “On their third try, they were delayed over three hours, boarded the aircraft, and then deplaned just before departure because the flight crew had exceeded their allowable hours,” Wharton said on Thursday. “They are still not home as of today.”
Wharton says that he’s heard from many other travel advisors who were dealing with similar issues throughout the week, as communication failures at the airline have left advisors and passengers “scrambling” for a plan.
“Clients reported that the American Airlines app and online reservations frequently showed outdated or conflicting information, gate agents often had little clarity to offer, and there was no consistent messaging about next steps,” Wharton said. “This made it extremely difficult for travel advisors to guide clients in real time, especially in an airport environment where passengers were understandably frustrated and stressed.”
Other carriers were able to be communicative and organized in re-accommodating passengers, according to Wharton. “With American, it felt like systems were breaking down across the board, from scheduling to crew management to customer communication, resulting in a compounding effect for travelers.”
Wharton says he’s been on call nearly 24/7 since the storm began last Friday, and that some of his stranded clients have run out of essential medications, like blood pressure prescriptions, due to the prolonged delays. “The storm exposed deeper operational weaknesses at American Airlines that directly impacted travelers’ safety, well-being, and trust,” he says.
During the disruptions, American has been offering passengers support in the form of hotel stays and ground transportation back to resorts.
“Cancellations are not what we want for our customers or our team members, and teams across the airline are working diligently to minimize them,” the airline said in the statement on its website.
American Airlines planes at Miami International Airport. (Photo Credit: Patrick Clarke)
When Will Operations Go Back to Normal?
American provided an update on late Tuesday evening that operations at DFW were “showing considerable day-to-day progress.” Among the improvements are more favorable ramp conditions at the hub, thanks to airport workers clearing residual ice, as well as keeping gates clear so flights can operate on time. That has meant a steady increase in departures and arrivals at DFW for American.
“We’re seeing taxi times normalize and our deicing needs are minimal to nonexistent, especially as temperatures increase and the sun continues to break up the frozen remnants of the storm,” the carrier said in its update on Tuesday.
In response to the ongoing issues, American extended its change fee waiver for passengers booked to travel through January 29 to give fliers a bit more flexibility to plan around the disruptions.
American’s CEO Robert Isom said on the airline’s earnings call Tuesday that executives expect elevated cancellations to last through at least Thursday, with operations hopefully returning to normal by the weekend.
Another snowstorm is forecast to slam into the Southeast U.S. this coming weekend, but the Dallas-Fort Worth area isn’t predicted to be in the system’s path. Hopefully, the majority of American Airlines passengers and crew will be able to make it to their final destinations by the end of Thursday, but it’s still too soon to tell.
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