Severe Thunderstorms Caused Massive Flight Delays and Cancelations

Severe thunderstorms affected American Airlines operations in Dallas/Fort Worth International hub on both Sunday and Monday.

American Airlines canceled 500 flights by Monday night according to flight-tracking website FlightAware. That’s around 17% of the total American Airlines flights. In addition to this, severe thunderstorms also delayed 854 flights from the airline. On Sunday, American Airlines had 283 canceled flights and 947 delayed flights while 80 of their flights were diverted to other airports.

Aside from the delayed and canceled flights caused by severe thunderstorms, passengers also complained about long hold times. In a tweet by American Airlines, “Mother nature isn’t playing nicely and many flights in and out DFW have been delayed or canceled”.

American Airlines wasn’t the only one affected by the severe thunderstorms. Other airlines also canceled flights and had delays including Southwest and Spirit Airlines. Southwest Airlines had 1,100 delayed and 44 canceled flights. Spirit Airlines, on the other hand, canceled 304 flights on Monday plus 165 flights on Sunday.

Severe Thunderstorms and Labor Shortages

Compared to other weather-related concerns, thunderstorms are less predictable. Aside from weather problems, airlines are also dealing with labor shortages caused by the recent surge in travel demand. Some employees last year opted to take buyouts and leaves of absence to let airlines cut costs.

In an internal list, there were around 30 flight cancellations due to the lack of crew members. Also, American Airlines took out around 1% of their scheduled flights for the first half of July.

According to American Airlines President Robert Isom, American Airlines can meet the demands of its passengers. In a quarterly call last month, Isom said that “And we expect to fly a larger domestic network at DFW this August than we did in August of 2019”.

The Transportation Security Administration on Sunday recorded 2.24 million travelers. That’s the most number of travelers since February 28, 2020.