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Southwest Airlines executive apologizes for flight disruptions
Oct 15, 2021, 8:43 AM
The President and Chief Operating Officer of Southwest Airlines apologized for last weekend’s disruptions to its flight schedule, which resulted in more than two thousand flights being cancelled over several days. Mike Van de Ven posted the apology on a company website.
VandeVen said the disruptions began with weather and air traffic control delays in Florida, where the company has major operations and where many of its flight crews are based. The problems eventually spread throughout the Southwest system.
VandeVen said they were not the result of any “unusual employee activity,” in spite of reports of sickouts or slowdowns in social media.
Southwest’s pilots union is suing the company over its COVID vaccine mandate, saying it violates their union contract. But the pilots association also denies there’s been any kind of job action related to the lawsuit.
VandeVen says the company has been reaching out individually to customers affected by the flight disruptions, and it asks them to give the airline another chance to live up to its service standards.
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