Spirit Airlines struggling to recover from hundreds of flight cancellations, delays

BOSTON — Spirit Airlines is still struggling to recover after hundreds of flights were canceled and delayed. By Tuesday evening, Spirit had canceled more than 400 flights, or nearly 60% of its schedule, according to the FlightAware tracking service.

“There’s no explanation. I have no idea what’s going on, there’s no reason, they don’t tell you, they just cancel a flight and then don’t help you,” said Jackie Santos, who was traveling to Florida.

Nearly 100 other flights were late. The blame appeared to lie at least partly with a technology outage affecting crew scheduling.

On Monday, Florida-based Spirit scrapped more than 330 flights, or 42% of its schedule, and canceled about 20% of its flights on Sunday.

The airline said it had been dealing with operational challenges like weather, system outages and staffing shortages. The airline added that the cancellation numbers should drop over the next few days. In addition, the airline said it completed a more thorough reboot of its network, which allowed crew members to be reassigned more efficiently and restore the network faster.

Spirit Airlines gave the following statement to Boston 25 News:

“The last three days were extremely difficult for our Guests and Team Members, and for that we sincerely apologize. We continue to work around the clock to get our Guests where they need to be.

“We’ve dealt with overlapping operational challenges including weather, system outages and staffing shortages that caused widespread irregularities in our operation and impacted crew scheduling. These issues were exacerbated by the fact that we are in peak summer travel season with very high industry load factors and more limited options for Guest re-accommodations.

“After working through yesterday’s proactive cancellations, we’ve implemented a more thorough reboot of the network, allowing us to reassign our crews more efficiently and restore the network faster. As a result, cancellation numbers will progressively drop in the days to come.

“By taking an in-depth look at the challenges we’re facing, we have identified opportunities for improvement that will help us operate a more resilient network and better serve our Guests.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report

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