Daytona Beach, FL - Almost 4,000 flights were canceled over the weekend as airlines cite Florida’s weather and other issues as the reason why.
According to FlightAware.com—which offers live tracking of flights, delays, and cancellations—over 3,500 cancellations and delays were reported across the country. In Florida, problems were mostly reported at the major airports in Miami, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, and Orlando; all of which serve as major travel hubs for the state. Those issues came as the state dealt with severe storms that rolled through the southeast United States.
On Sunday (April 3) alone, FlightAware reported that those four airports canceled a combined total of 263 flights, with another 639 that ended up facing delays.
Carriers such as Southwest, JetBlue, Spirit, and American Airlines dealt with the brunt of cancellations and delays. On Sunday, Southwest had canceled 464 flights—10 percent of its total load—while 1,444 of their flights—38 percent of their total load—were delayed. The low-cost carrier took to Twitter on Saturday to address the canceled and delayed flights, saying weather and a “technology issue” affected their operations nationwide.
“We are experiencing flight disruptions across our network today due to briefly pausing our service earlier this morning as we worked to resolve an intermittent technology issue, as well as ongoing weather challenges impacting multiple areas within our system,” said Southwest.
In a report with AP, a JetBlue spokesperson attributed their delays and cancellations to severe weather and “multiple air traffic control delay programs.”
As of Monday morning (April 4), airlines like JetBlue and Spirit were still reporting delays and cancellations, but not nearly as much as they encountered over the weekend.
