Dallas-based Southwest Airlines started Thursday with more than 530 cancellations nationwide as operations are challenged by weather and an “uptick” in COVID-19 sick calls among employees.
“Southwest’s operation continues to be challenged by wintery weather, compounded by the effects of the pandemic dealing us another surge with the COVID-19 omicron variant,” said a statement from Southwest Airlines spokeswoman Alyssa Foster.
Nashville International led the country with more 198 cancellations, according to Flightaware.com. That’s about a third of all flights out of the Tennessee airport after Southwest and other carriers preemptively cut flights heading into Thursday with the region expecting five to six inches of snow today.
The same storm is sweeping through Missouri, Colorado and Kansas as it makes its way to the East Coast to pile on winter weather from earlier this week that shut down hundreds of flights in Maryland, New Jersey and Washington, D.C.
“As we work to balance staffing amid the weather disruptions, our COVID-19 sick call counts among Employees, and the required quarantines for close contact among other individuals, are experiencing an uptick,” Foster said. “This uptick is reflective of the national COVID-19 trend but adds another layer of complication when working to recover our network.”
Southwest told employees Tuesday that it was going to offer bonus pay to flight attendants and other operations employees that pick up certain shifts during between Jan. 4 and 25.
“Our focus is to stabilize the operation as we work through winter storms, while navigating the national COVID-19 spike to maintain sufficient staffing, so that we can offer a more reliable schedule as soon as possible,” Foster said.
It’s a similar move to the one made by United, which is offering pilots bonus pay of up to three times normal pay to pick up shifts in January, according to CNBC.
Chicago-based United Airlines has canceled 215 of its Thursday flights and regional carrier SkyWest, which flies for American, United and others, has canceled 195.
Some 1,462 flights have been canceled nationwide Thursday, making a 12-day streak where more than 1,000 flights have been canceled in the United States. Southwest is also dealing with 118 delays nationwide, according to Flightaware.com.
Airports in Denver, Chicago, Newark and Seattle are also coping with triple-digit cancellations numbers.
Southwest’s cancellations total about one-sixth of the carrier’s nationwide schedule, after canceling 530 flights on Wednesday and about 400 on Tuesday.
So far Thursday, 51 flights in and out of Dallas Love Field have been canceled and 12 delayed, about 10% of the airport’s flights. About 34 flights from DFW International Flights have been canceled, less than 1% of flights at the airport.
