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Home » American Airlines » Uh Oh: American Airlines Delays, Cancels 2,000+ Flights
American Airlines

Uh Oh: American Airlines Delays, Cancels 2,000+ Flights

Kyle Stewart Posted onOctober 31, 2021October 31, 2021 29 Comments

American Airlines canceled or delayed more than 2,000 flights over Halloween weekend. Is this another labor issue or just weather?


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***Updated: 10:13 EDT October 31, 2021***

American Airlines Delays, Cancels 2,000+ Flights Halloween Weekend

Delays and cancellations on Friday, Saturday, and (proactively) on Sunday plagued American Airlines. The company issued a statement,

“With additional weather throughout the system, our staffing begins to run tight as crew members end up out of their regular flight sequences,” American said in a statement to CNN.

Windy conditions limited Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport departures and arrivals to just two runways, a dramatic reduction from the hub’s (7) runways. Charlotte also experienced issues over the weekend. The issue amounted to flight disruptions of nearly one in three flights from the carrier across the network over Halloween weekend.

By Saturday night, 248 AA flights on Sunday had been canceled. With tight flight schedules and crew limitations, customer service issues will likely continue throughout the day as more domestic flights are canceled. At the time of the last update, the number had climbed to 634 cancellations, (12% of the schedule) before lunchtime. 

American Airlines delay

Mirrors Southwest Airlines

Didn’t we just see this movie? Southwest blamed delays over a troubling weekend earlier in October on “ATC”, weather, and crew issues. initially, that statement by Southwest’s PR team was rebuffed as other carriers flying into Florida had few issues with ATC or bad weather.

This batch of flight delays and cancellations appears to be less controversial but still raises eyebrows and questions as the incidents are eerily similar.

Southwest status extension

Vaccine Mandate Protest or Not?

American Airlines and Southwest Airlines both have challenges from their labor groups over a variety of issues, but the two Dallas carriers were the only pair to have employee demonstrations outside their headquarters related to the vaccine mandate. However, United had some pilots sue for an injunction to stop or pause the company mandate. SWAPA, the Southwest pilot union, fought the mandate in court but lost.

If it were a labor action against the mandate, the American pilots were much less coordinated than what Southwest appears to have been and unlike the Southwest situation, the anecdotal reports from American pilots have not been public as Southwest employees were.

There were also some substantial weather issues that affected a number of airlines this weekend though not to the same extent as American. It could be a combination of weather and a smaller protest, or it could corroborate Southwest’s statement that planes out of place mean that crews are out of place too.

While there’s room for speculation with Southwest’s cancellation event, weather, and tighter crew bases leaves little room for error. It seems that in the case of American Airlines this weekend, weather issues and crew positioning appears to be the most likely cause.

Conclusion

American Airlines had a substantial flight disruption over Halloween weekend 2o21. The event appeared to mirror Southwest’s meltdown and American Airlines, like Southwest, has faced employee backlash over vaccine mandates for employees. However, similar delays from other airlines in the same airport markets, weather data, and a known labor limitation appear to have combined to make a troublesome weekend for the carrier and its customers.

What do you think? Were you on a delayed or canceled American Airlines flight over the weekend? Have you seen any evidence to counter the weather claim? Does this corroborate Southwest’s claim and discredit arguments that there was labor action during the Southwest incident? 

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About Author

Kyle Stewart

Kyle is a freelance travel writer with contributions to Time, the Washington Post, MSNBC, Yahoo!, Reuters, Huffington Post, MapHappy, Live And Lets Fly and many other media outlets. He is also co-founder of Scottandthomas.com, a travel agency that delivers "Travel Personalized." He focuses on using miles and points to provide a premium experience for his wife and daughter. Email: sherpa@thetripsherpa.com

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29 Comments

  1. Jan Reply
    October 31, 2021 at 7:50 am

    Fix this, Joe Biden! lol

    • Trip Host Reply
      October 31, 2021 at 12:36 pm

      Joe Biden is not responsible for all that brother.

      • Jan Reply
        October 31, 2021 at 7:50 pm

        Of course not, I thought the ‘lol’ was a way of being tongue in cheek. There are other real problems like illegals crossing the border by the thousands, supply chain issues, an impending crushing inflation, and the Taliban running rampant. But unfortunately, Joe and his ‘handlers’ don’t feel like they’re responsible for that either.

  2. Batchcaloupe Reply
    October 31, 2021 at 8:01 am

    The American Airlines check in area was a shitshow this morning!!

    LETS GO BRANDON!!!

  3. Dave Edwards Reply
    October 31, 2021 at 9:12 am

    It’s all the liberals who are boycotting Southwest over the pilot saying “Let’s Go Brandon” trying to get on AA at the last minute causing the issues.

  4. UA-NYC Reply
    October 31, 2021 at 9:43 am

    That’s all the right wing mouth breathers have these days – cancel culture! Go get em!

    How things have fallen since Reagan…truly a national and global embarrassment.

    • Dave Edwards Reply
      October 31, 2021 at 10:25 am

      [redacted by admin]

      The entire thing is because so many of these liberals have kids named Brandon and now they can’t cheer for the kid to cross the finish line in 10th and get his participation trophy.

      And honest question, do you ever write anything without using the term “mouth breather”? It’s another HP term that liberal followers saw once and use daily like they did “fail” for years.

      Strange bunch of people who could actually make something of their lives if they didn’t think they were so much better than minorities. They think minorities are too stupid to vote, get ID’s, get an education and make something of their life without government helping them.

      Talk to you Tuesday night when you are crying over Virginia.

      Let’s Go Brandon!

      • Kyle Stewart Reply
        October 31, 2021 at 11:00 am

        @Dave – We are all about free speech but there are some minimum levels of decorum that we require in the comments section and your first paragraph broke it. Disagreements are fine, discourse is what this country is founded on – but that went a little further than what we allow.

        • Dave Edwards Reply
          October 31, 2021 at 11:08 am

          Understand but the back story is UA has said worse things about my wife and it’s been a back and forth.

          No excuse or apology for posting it, but know it’s not a one sided issue here.

          Have a great day and if you have time you should do a story on the SW pilot announcing Let’s Go Brandon and the crazy AP reporter trying to get into the cockpit to confront him.

        • UA-NYC Reply
          October 31, 2021 at 12:10 pm

          Funny that openly blatant racism and bigotry that flourishes on this blog somehow is okay though…

          • Kyle Stewart
            October 31, 2021 at 1:05 pm

            @UA-NYC – If you have examples of “openly blatant racism and bigotry that flourishes on this blog” please send me links and examples and they will be taken down. Neither Matthew nor I will tolerate openly blatant racism and bigotry.

            sherpa@thetripsherpa.com

          • UA-NYC
            October 31, 2021 at 5:43 pm

            You’ve gotta be kidding me, right? Search @Jackson Waterson’s post history and you will see literally dozens of posts verbally assailing POC and any other non-Caucasian people, comparing black people to primates, you name it. Endless repetitive racism that I and many others have called out no shortage of times – yet you let it persist.

            You’ll also see rampant vaccine misinformation posted by posters such as @acura, but apparently that’s NBFD too.

          • Batchcaloupe
            October 31, 2021 at 6:40 pm

            Yeah like when a white woman in a gorilla mask attacks a black man running for office. None of your favorite outlets reported on that. It’s overwhelming corruption and outrageous hypocrisy.

        • Dave Edwards Reply
          October 31, 2021 at 6:19 pm

          Kyle, feel free to see the stuff UA posts below about my wife. Of course I can take it but just shows what we are dealing with here.

          Must have been a bad night for him at the Labyrinth Club last night.

      • UA-NYC Reply
        October 31, 2021 at 12:09 pm

        Mouth breathing when y’all live in an alternate universe, invent a controversy out of thin air (CRT) that doesn’t exist in reality, wish the world never left the 1950s and certain groups are second class citizens, are widely xenophobic, seek to overturn elections when they don’t go your way, and follow a false idol. Damn straight!

        • Dave Edwards Reply
          October 31, 2021 at 1:25 pm

          UA is triggered! Love it. Throwing out accusations, called on it with no examples and then blames Trump. Can’t make this stuff up.

          As stereotypical liberal as it gets.

        • Dave Edwards Reply
          October 31, 2021 at 5:26 pm

          Snap! You said mouth breathers again. Do you have anything that doesn’t come from the liberal talking points at the HuffPost? What a clown.

          Let’s Go Brandon!

          • UA-NYC
            October 31, 2021 at 5:46 pm

            [redacted by admin]

    • Jan Reply
      October 31, 2021 at 10:52 am

      It’s because of all that Fox News and Newsmax, I tell ya!

  5. Al Reply
    October 31, 2021 at 11:52 am

    Funny how many big companies want their employees not to voice their political opinion, yet they wrote millions of dollars in checks to BLM. Where’d that money go? Results- tons of looted and burned down businesses. Thousands of health care workers, police,first responders, pilots, military personal losing their jobs over Brandons authoritarian mandates. Now Brandon’s cronies want to give $450,000 reparations to illegal families separated at the border. If you haven’t seen the latest photos’ of the new caravans headed to the US border, check it out, it’s mind boggling. The insanity continues! LGB

    • Batchcaloupe Reply
      October 31, 2021 at 2:37 pm

      To your point A, theZBLZm stuff that’s call a shakedown a la Al Sharpton!!

      Regarding the illegals, I have been trying to get my adopted daughters here legally and it’s a joke. It takes forever. The dopey government blames COVID yet they are happy to take our money and give sanctuary and goodies to illegals.

      LETS GO BRANDON!!!

  6. Jerry Reply
    October 31, 2021 at 12:05 pm

    Regarding high winds, it’s not a lie. I got to GDL 4 hours late on Friday because of it. DFW wasn’t using the N/S runways, but rather the two running NW/SE. In hundreds, if not thousands of trips in and out of DFW, I’ve never seen that.

    Doesn’t function wet. Doesn’t function windy. We just can’t win at DFW.

    • Kyle Stewart Reply
      October 31, 2021 at 1:06 pm

      I agree and saw many examples online.

  7. GetReal Reply
    October 31, 2021 at 1:27 pm

    There’s only one thing that caused this: poor management.

  8. Desertfox Reply
    October 31, 2021 at 5:22 pm

    Halloween has always been a higher than normal call off , particularly for flight attendants, but coupled with the runway restrictions and covid frustrations it turned into a perfect storm.

  9. Marv Reply
    October 31, 2021 at 6:20 pm

    Does anything coming out of Texass ever work right? The goofiest state in the union does it again. All bad things in the USA emanate from that craphole. Hopefully they secede from the union and make NY con artist Donald Dump King for Life. Effin rubes and hillbillies.

    • Batchcaloupe Reply
      November 1, 2021 at 4:15 am

      Then why are so many people, especially lefties see Austin, voting with their feet and moving there??

      People don’t willingly pick up an move into “craphole “ states or countries? You want examples??

  10. Emma Fox Reply
    November 13, 2021 at 4:53 am

    I believe weather can be the reason for delays or cancel flights

  11. Ovais Mirza Reply
    December 2, 2024 at 8:23 am

    The disruptions at American Airlines highlight the challenges airlines face with weather, labor shortages, and vaccine mandates.

    While weather plays a significant role, the parallels to Southwest’s situation raise valid questions about employee unrest. Balancing operational demands with mandates is tough, and clear communication from airlines is crucial to avoid speculation. Passengers deserve transparency during such chaotic events.

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