Southwest Airlines isn't having a good month, to say the least.
Today, the airline announced it had a $60 million hit in revenue due to the government shutdown, and on Monday, it came out that the airline's weight and balance calculations are under investigation by the FAA.
Now it appears the airline has canceled hundreds of flights and it may have something to do with Southwest declaring an operational emergency last week.
According to Flightaware.com, Southwest has canceled 431 flights today which is about 11 percent of their entire operations. This is on top of 346 flights being delayed. On Tuesday, they canceled 191 flights and delayed another 900 flights.
Apparently, half of the flight cancellations in the past few days have been due to maintenance issues, though it's unclear how much of the winter weather disruptions in different areas of the U.S. are to cause for some of the flight cancellations today.
According to Southwest, most of the fault lies with their mechanics. Southwest Chief Operating Officer Mike Van de Van said, "We apologize to our customers who have been inconvenienced by this disruption,'' and pointed to the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association as the cause for the current disruption in their work. Southwest has two outstanding lawsuits against the AMFA.
The union was quick to reply to Southwest's claims.
"Southwest Airlines scapegoating of its expert aircraft maintenance technicians does not bode well for the airline's safe operations,'' Bret Oestreich, national director of AMFA, said in a statement. "Safety is, and always will be, our number one priority.''
Regardless of who is to blame, travelers should check their flights before heading to the airport today, and seemingly in the near future, until Southwest Airlines gets back on track.
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