Jun
26
Northwest Flight Cancellations
Filed Under Northwest
The pilot union for Northwest Airlines blames a pilot shortage for a recent wave of flight cancellations. The airline has canceled 193 flights on Sunday and 163 on Sunday according to airline pilots association. They also said there has been at least 450 cancellations since Saturday. The airline is blaming the cancellations on weather related disruptions due to scheduling.
Due to weather events at the beginning of the month, it is causing their pilots to go over contractual limits. Thus this is limiting the number of crews available to fly and causing in a shortage of pilots. Northwest says they are operating at their max this summer and the max their pilots are allowed to fly according to their contract is 90 hours per month.
Both sides could be stretching the truth on the reason for the recent cancellations. Northwest could be operating very thin on their pilots and not having enough to cover their flights. Some weather at the beginning of the month could have caused a little disruption in scheduling but it looks like majority of it is becoming to be a shortage of their pilots, and pilots wanting to make an impact on management.
This might be the sign of the future. I see the shortage in pilots are happening everyday in airlines and especially regional carriers. A lot of employees are very negative in the airline industry which causes them to switch jobs or in the next coming years there is a going to be a huge retiring boom of pilots. So if you have flights with Northwest right now, you are going to want to make sure your flight is on time and operating at all!
Updated News story on the Flight Cancellations