FILE: A Southwest airlines plane prepares to land at Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport on February 20, 2019 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
SALT LAKE CITY — A third of the Southwest Airlines flights set to depart Salt Lake City Monday were cancelled, according the real time flight-tracking website FlightAware.
A spokesperson for Southwest Airlines confirmed to KSL NewsRadio that 33 Southwest flights were scheduled at Salt Lake International Airport on Monday.
As of Monday afternoon, Flight Aware said that 13 total flights were canceled at the Salt Lake airport today, 11 of those from Southwest Airlines.
The spokesperson for Southwest did not confirm those numbers but did tell KSL Newsradio, “typically FlightAware is pretty accurate.”
“On Friday evening, the airline ended the day with numerous cancellations, primarily created by weather and other external constraints, which left aircraft and Crews out of pre-planned positions to operate our schedule on Saturday,” a statement from Southwest said.
“Unfortunately, the out-of-place aircraft and continued strain on our Crew resources created additional cancelations across our point-to-point network that cascaded throughout the weekend and into Monday.”
Southwest said that they are experiencing fewer disruptions today as work continues to “restore stability to the network.”
The cancelations began Friday after pilots went to court to stop the airline’s vaccine mandate. But officials said the cancellations were not associated with a protest.
“The operational challenges were not a result of Southwest Employee demonstrations, as some outlets are reporting,” the statement said.
