Spirit Aviation Due to staffing issues, weather and technical issues, approximately 1,800 flights have been cancelled since Sunday. The airline cancelled 446 flights on Thursday, accounting for 56% of its flights. This trend will continue on Friday, causing significant inconvenience to summer passengers.
CEO Ted Christie said the cancellation is expected to continue until next week so that the company can regain its footing.
“There must be a lot of angry people. Now, I can only say that we are very sorry for what happened,” Christie says“When we reach this level of interruption, it does require a lot of resources to be able to recover. We are not built to deal with this level of interruption. I think there is some knowledge about how we generate variability in staffing. So that we can deal with it.
Flight cancellations: After weekend storms and “operational challenges,” American Airlines cancelled more than 500 flights on Monday. Spirit Airlines canceled 37% of its flights. pic.twitter.com/XFRG0qZsEi
— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) August 2, 2021
“We started to cancel our staff who were dislocated due to the system. They appeared in the wrong place at the wrong time and we needed to rebuild the puzzle. Unfortunately, it took a lot of time. So we started to cancel more deeply and dive into the surgery In, give them time,” Christie added.
Spirit Airlines is a joke_ pic.twitter.com/N18vM1RMLs
— Nikki (@TheNikkiRosa) August 4, 2021
The chaos of the past few days has angered many customers stranded at the airport. The sharp rebound in travel a year ago only exacerbated the problem. Christie said the airline is beginning to reverse the situation and things will return to normal soon.
He said: “We will do everything we can to regain the trust of our guests and the traveling public. We believe we can do it.”
Christie added that the company will provide refunds to customers affected by the cancellation of refunds. He added that with hindsight, airlines should cancel more flights sooner to readjust. Instead, they choose to maintain flights to cater to large numbers of passengers.
