Sounds like concrete evidence to me!

I know i Southwest flight attendant personally who told me three weeks ago there are over 3000 SW. employees who are fighting the vaccination mandate and I'm sure there are plenty of other airlines employees who are doing the same thing this weather excuse is nothing but a lie

GAC06 said:

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Sounds like concrete evidence to me!

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I can't tell if you're trying to mock me or you're laughing with me I'll take it that you're agreeing with me and you're laughing with me

I haven't seen the sick numbers yet so I'm not saying it wasn't a sick out, but there have been various meltdowns for several airlines this year because of staffing issues. A weather issue they should be able to absorb derails the operation because they don't have the bodies to recover.

In the last couple weeks people here have seized on the idea that there's a giant vaccine protest and so far the evidence doesn't support it.

I do expect a meltdown around Thanksgiving though.

LegalDrugPusher said:

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GAC06 said:

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You're sure of it?

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Yes the gate agent announced over the intercom the flight was delayed due to lack of a flight attendant who got sick all of a sudden

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Flight attendant could have gotten sick or was unavailable for some other reason. The gate agent is probably gonna go with whatever they think will go over better

Dan Scott said:

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DFW has 7 runways. They were down to 2 for most of Thursday using the two outer runways that run northwest to SouthEast instead of the 5 parallel North and South runways. They were also doing that Friday but not most of the day like Thursday. It was a huge traffic jam on the runways Thursday.

LUV by default has the northwest Southeast runways so wouldn't expect operation issues for them.

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I did see a couple of planes using a SE/NW runway that is not a usual runway Thursday night at DFW.

TriAg2010 said:

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YouBet said:

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We did have really high winds on Friday and Saturday here in Dallas, but SWA did not experience cancellations at LUV like AA did at DFW.

Would tell you this is more of a staffing issue than the wind unless the wind patterns changed dramatically in the 20 miles between them.

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DFW airport had to shift operations to the crosswind runways (i.e. 31R and 31L). That is a big impact to operations since they go from four parallel runways to two and taxi distances go way up.

DAL was less impacted because it's runways are already oriented the same as DFWs cross-wind runways. They share the same 31R and 31L designation. It was just another norm day at DAL.

You can go watch this on FlightRadar24. It's entirely rational why DFW took a harder hit than DAL.

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Well, there you go.

GAC06 said:

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I haven't seen the sick numbers yet so I'm not saying it wasn't a sick out, but there have been various meltdowns for several airlines this year because of staffing issues. A weather issue they should be able to absorb derails the operation because they don't have the bodies to recover.

In the last couple weeks people here have seized on the idea that there's a giant vaccine protest and so far the evidence doesn't support it.

I do expect a meltdown around Thanksgiving though.

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Thanksgiving huh? I can't wait. Gonna be good.

I'm sure Pete will still be breastfeeding during that time.

The airlines also changed schedules during the height of the pandemic to rely on large pushes that stacked up airplanes/flights to make things more efficient with other staff. The problem is that it also makes for very little room for error. Small delays have much bigger downstream effects in the network. Cancellations end up creating problems with planes not being where they need to be, as well as crews. Throw in even slightly higher sick time than normal and you are super ducked. Crews already working near the top of duty limits time out before completing the next flight. Union rules around scheduling are insanely complicated (a SWA pilot used to sell an app that would help you game the system; not sure if he still does with the new crew scheduling system that was launched a few years ago). Reserve pilot numbers are lower than they used to be because of slowed hiring, etc.

Point is these schedules are a house of cards now. Something as simple as flow restrictions by ATC or closing a runway when they exceed allowable crosswind for your airline's op specs can royally hose the system to where the only option is lots of cancellations.

REUTERS: American Airlines cancels more flights; total now over 2,000

— Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) November 1, 2021

Know a few pilots with various airlines. Between what is "actually" going on behind the scenes and the fact that about 40% of TSA is refusing the vax ***** with a Nov. 22 "deadline", they are all saying Thanksgiving air travel with be a Charlie Foxtrot.