Southwest Airlines (SWA) grappled with its fifth straight day of flight cancellations and system-wide delays Tuesday. The air carrier is working to get back on track, but lurking behind the disruptions were issues related to the pandemic slowdown that may impact holiday air travel in the coming months.
According to reports, over 2,000 flights were canceled since Friday, crippling air travel for the carrier on a busy holiday weekend. In a Tuesday news release, Southwest explained the disruptions were "created by weather and other external constraints." The effects of those cancellations "cascaded" throughout the system, lasting through the weekend and into this week, the carrier explained.
The outage coincided with the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association filing a motion with a federal judge asking to block the company's vaccine mandate. A union for SWA mechanics issued a statement opposing the mandate as a contractual violation.
The Dallas-based airline announced last week that, because of its contracts with the federal government, all Southwest workers must be fully vaccinated by Dec. 8. Employees who are not vaccinated or approved for medical or religious exemptions face termination.
Both Southwest and the pilots' union denied that the cancellations were connected to the vaccine mandate.
The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association said its members were "not participating in any official or unofficial job actions," adding, it did not condone walkouts or sickouts.
SWA union president Casey Murray told The Associated Press that the real problem was Southwest’s operations. He blamed the carrier's antiquated crew-scheduling technology that has become "brittle" and "cracks under the slightest pressure." In June, a computer glitch grounded hundreds of Southwest planes and delayed over one-third of its scheduled flights.
According to CNBC, the union's safety committee said the disruptions were the result of "months of staffing issues and inefficient scheduling practices." As a result, pilots are under strain and reports of fatigue are three times the historic rate.
The disruptions at Southwest were the most conspicuous. But many of the issues the airline is dealing with are affecting the entire industry.
"A lot of the challenge is demand uncertainty," explained Laurie Garrow, the co-director of the Center for Urban and Regional Air Mobility at Georgia Tech and president of AGIFORS, a nonprofit organization specializing in airline research.
Before the pandemic, scheduling was slightly more predictable with most people booking flights four to six weeks in advance, Garrow said. Now, most airlines have to accommodate bookings and cancellations within one or two weeks or at the very last minute. That has put a strain on carriers that remain understaffed because of the pandemic.
The images over the last holiday weekend of thousands of stranded passengers raised questions about whether the airlines will be prepared for Thanksgiving and winter holiday bookings.
"In some ways, Thanksgiving and Christmas are a little easier than this weekend that just happened, because Thanksgiving and Christmas travel tend to be much easier to predict," Garrow noted.
Typically, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and Dec. 23 are among the busiest air travel days of the year. "Those patterns really haven't changed during COVID," Garrow said. So, airlines are planning accordingly.
One thing travelers can expect is less flexibility if there is bad weather or other technical delays. Fewer airline employees and ongoing hiring challenges have meant fewer reserve crews to take over when disruptions occur.
Since the start of the pandemic, Southwest has lost 7,000 workers. The entire airline industry was down more than 23,300 workers compared to 2019, according to the Department of Transportation. Southwest and other pilots' unions have argued that airlines have been too slow to bring pilots back to work from pandemic furloughs when demand restarted this year.
Like other airlines, Southwest began adding flights to its schedule in the spring as vaccination rates increased and the public became more comfortable flying. The spread of the delta variant and bad weather led airlines to, once again, scale back travel schedules.
During the delta surge this summer, Southwest and American Airlines announced they were cutting flights through the fall to avoid overburdening their operations. United, which has sought to build public trust with an aggressive vaccination mandate, recently announced it would soon be flying 91% of its pre-pandemic capacity. Airlines have said the cuts would not affect holiday schedules.
Travelers may also expect higher ticket prices this year compared to the historic low rates during 2020. Airfare hit an annual low in December 2020 and January. Prices have since made a slow but steady comeback. High energy prices are also likely to weigh on travelers. The price of jet fuel in the U.S. has doubled since last year and increased more than 15% over last month.
With the holidays coming up, travelers are encouraged to make plans sooner than later. According to Expedia, ticket prices are nearing pre-pandemic levels. The discount travel site recommends booking flights 28-35 days in advance to get the lowest prices.
For flyers most concerned about delays and disruptions, Garrow recommends jumping on early morning flights. Delays tend to back up later in the day. She also suggested leaving time between connections and avoiding those peak travel days.