American Airlines cancels more flights out of Charlotte Monday, but help is on the way
American Airlines canceled more than two dozen flights leaving Charlotte on Monday, but said the level of cancellations was coming down headed into the rest of the week.
The cancellations mark the fourth day of nationwide flight cancellations for the airline, which attributed the disruption to high winds at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport as well as staffing shortages.
Flight disruptions caused by the wind left employees out of their regular flight sequences, leaving the airline to proactively cancel flights at other airports like Charlotte, the airline wrote in a statement initially shared with employees.
Charlotte Douglas International Airport is an American Airlines hub, and the airline is the dominant carrier at the airport.
Across American Airlines on Monday, 338 flights out of a total of 5,639, or 6%, were canceled, according to airline spokesman Andrew Trull. Sunday saw the most flights canceled — 1,060 out of 5,180, or nearly 20% of all flights.
The airline said 100 flights that were scheduled to leave Charlotte Douglas International Airport were canceled on Sunday. By Monday morning, there were 28 cancellations out of a total of 645, according to Trull.
The airline said there were no current impacts to the schedule for Tuesday.
“We continue to see improvement in our operation today, with some residual operational impacts expected into early this week,” Trull said in an email to the Observer Monday.
At the airport Monday morning, the longest lines are at American Airlines ticketing counters where passengers were rebooking flights, Charlotte Douglas International Airport said in a statement to the Observer. There aren’t many long lines at the security gates where wait times were between 10 and 20 minutes, in some cases less than that, according to the airport.
Passengers upset with American Airlines over delays
Passengers continued to vent on social media to share their frustrations about the delays.
“I get to spend almost 24 hours at CLT airport or find a hotel at my own expense,” one person posted to Twitter Monday morning. The airline responded to the passenger’s tweet, saying they had sent a direct message. But the person posted later that the response was not much help and that they were “fending for myself to get answers, rebook, find my checked bags, and get a hotel.”
Another flier posted a photo of a packed concourse and called the Charlotte airport “a real zoo” because of American.
According to CNN, help is on the way for many travelers.
Starting Monday, 1,800 flight attendants are returning from pandemic time-off to help with staffing shortages.
This story was originally published November 1, 2021 at 11:20 AM with the headline "American Airlines cancels more flights out of Charlotte Monday, but help is on the way."
