American Airlines travelers at LAX affected after company cancels hundreds of flights nationwide
LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- American Airlines said it was working to get operations back to normal after canceling hundreds of flights nationwide over the weekend, including some at Los Angeles International Airport.
Two American Airlines flights scheduled to depart LAX on Monday were canceled and four flights scheduled to depart were delayed.
Over the weekend, about 9% of the airline's total were canceled or delayed due to weather and staffing issues, officials said. Some of the cancellations affected Southern California airports.
The flights that were canceled arriving to LAX Monday morning were from Austin, Texas; Honolulu, Hawaii; Houston, Texas; Phoenix, Arizona; Dallas-Fort Worth in Texas; Denver, Colorado; and El Paso, Texas. The two American Airlines flights that were scheduled to depart from LAX and canceled were bound or Seoul, South Korea and Philadelphia.
LAX saw 28 canceled American Airlines flights Sunday. A spokesperson for the airport said that 180 other flights at LAX would be on time.
Hollywood Burbank Airport had one delayed American Airlines flight to Phoenix delayed this morning and had one canceled flight Sunday. Long Beach Airport did not list any canceled American flights.
By late afternoon Sunday, American had canceled more than 900 flights - one-third of its schedule for the day - after scrapping nearly 900 flights over the previous two days, according to tracking service FlightAware.
A spokeswoman for American said the airline expects considerable improvement on Monday, although there will be "some residual impact from the weekend." By Sunday afternoon, American had already canceled more than 100 Monday flights, according to FlightAware.
American's troubles began Thursday and Friday, when high winds at times shut down its busiest hub, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, and prevented the airline from using all runways there. That made it difficult for American to get crews in position for upcoming flights, and caused disruptions. The number of canceled and delayed flights grew larger in number and geographic sweep throughout the weekend.
"To make sure we are taking care of our customers and providing scheduling certainty for our crews, we have adjusted our operation for the last few days this month by proactively canceling some flights," David Seymour, the airline's chief operating officer, said in a note to employees on Saturday.
About two-thirds of Sunday's cancellations were due to a lack of flight attendants in the right places, with almost all the remaining cancellations due to a shortage of pilots, according to internal figures seen by The Associated Press.
ABC News contributed to this report.
