SkyWest, the regional airline which operates on behalf of Alaska, American, Delta, and United, has cancelled or delayed more than 2,000 flights over the last 48 hours after experiencing an “internal technical issue” thought to be a server outage.
SkyWest Meltdown: Thousands Of Flights Delayed Or Cancelled
On Thursday, SkyWest cancelled 666 flights, representing 26% of its schedule, and delayed 551 flights, representing 22% of its schedule. On Friday, SkyWest cancelled 705 flights, representing 28% of its schedule, and delayed 633 flights, representing 25% of its schedule. According to Flight Aware, SkyWest has cancelled 74 flights this morning.
The Utah-based airline blames a system outage for the operational meltdown, issuing a statement on Thursday evening promising to restore normal operations as quickly as possible:
“SkyWest experienced an internal technical issue, resulting in approximately 700 flight cancellations before the issue was resolved Thursday evening. We apologize to customers for the inconvenience; we are working to minimize the impact on Friday’s schedule and to return to normal operations as quickly as possible.”
But Friday’s operational performance turned out to be even worse than Thursday’s.
A Delta spokesperson said Delta’s technical teams worked with SkyWest to resolve the issue:
“Our technical teams engaged with SkyWest IT to resolve the issue and minimize the impact on our customers. We are working with customers directly to accommodate them to their destination as soon as possible and apologize for the inconvenience.”
Meanwhile, an Alaska Airlines spokesperson simply promised Alaska was working to help displaced passengers as quickly as possible:
“We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused for our guests. We’re providing services to them as we work to get impacted travelers to their destinations as quickly as possible.”
CONCLUSION
If you’re traveling on a regional jet this weekend, do check your flight status before heading to the airport and brace yourself to be patient. Although the technical issue, which United called a server outrage, was resolved on Thursday night, the cascading effect of multi-hour outage continues to hamper operations.
I was caught on this mess… got to SLC and missed my connection even though I wasn’t flying on SkyWest/Delta flight. Airport operations were a mess. The rebooking agent said all the airline contracted hotel rooms in town were gone by 8-ish (I landed at 11:45pm) and it was best if I fended for myself while submitting a hotel room claim. On the upside, it felt like I was given a carte blanche to write my ticket home. Ended up SLC-LAX-JFK all upfront.