cancellations on disruptive weather and air traffic control issues. the federal aviation administration later responded saying there have been no air traffic staffing shortages reported since friday and notably no other airlines this weekend seemed to experience the same level of disruption. the cancellations come after the union representing southwest airline pilots filed a request with the court to temporarily block the airline s vaccine mandate causing some to wonder whether the mandate is causing the cancellation of hundreds of flights. senator ted cruz tweeted joe biden s illegal vaccine mandate at work. suddenly we re short on pilots and air traffic controllers. the pilot s union insists the pilots aren t participating in any kind of protest and now as flight cancellations continue this morning with 9% of the airline s flights already affected, southwest said on twitter an hour ago they anticipate returning to normal
10% of southwest flights canceled as of now. the cancellations on sunday alone amounted to more than a quarter of the airline s scheduled flights. southwest blamed the cancellations on disruptive weather and air traffic control issues but the federal aviation administration later responded saying there have been no air traffic staffing shortages reported since friday and notably no other airline seemed to be experiencing this level of disruption. the cancellations come after the union representing southwest pilots filed a request with the court on friday to temporarily block the airline s vaccine mandate and that s causing some to wonder whether the mandate is causing the cancellation of hundreds of flights. meanwhile the pilot s union insize pilots are not staging a sick out or any protest. they blame the airline s management saying our pilots will continue to overcome
all dogs during our third annual national make a dog s day. nurse mariyam sabo knows a moment this pure. .demands a lotion this pure. new gold bond pure moisture lotion. 24-hour hydration. no parabens, dyes, or fragrances. gold bond. champion your skin. southwest airlines is still trying to rebound from what was a weekend meltdown. the airline canceled more than 200 scheduled flights over the busy holiday weekend. today hundreds of passengers are still stranded and delays and cancellations are ongoing. in a statement to nbc news, southwest blamed the disruptions on the weather and air traffic control issues, which was almost immediately rebutted by the faa. the agency put out a statement saying, quote, no faa air traffic staffing shortages have
airport just to reschedule. tonight, the statement from southwest blaming, quote, weather and other external constraints what the faa says about that. abc s gio benitez covers aviation for us. reporter: tonight, problems with southwest airlines flights causing an extraordinary mess at airports across the country. what we re seeing here at dallas love field airport is basically a domino effect from the weekend. reporter: fabricia s teenage daughter is trying to get to miami. she has a mass on her brain. they did not handle it properly. they have no answers for you. they tell you that. nothing that we can do. reporter: since saturday alone, southwest airlines has canceled more than 2,200 flights, blaming the multiday mess on air traffic control issues and bad weather. today, adding, other external constraints. but the faa firing back, saying no faa air traffic staffing shortages have been reported since friday and that the issues some airlines are seeing are due
calling this an operational meltdown. the cancellations that started over the weekend continuing today. one in ten flights are cancelled today and one in 30 were delayed after 2,000 were cancelled over the weekend. we were on the phone for seven hours, 44 minutes before they answered the phone because it was so backlogged. they said they re having problems. they wouldn t say what it was. they said you re lucky you got a flight. there s no bad weather. there s got to be something behind the scenes they re not telling us. southwest blamed them on disruptive weather and air traffic control issues. the faa pushed back said there s no air traffic staffing shortages since friday. no other airlines seem to be experiencing this level of disruption. there s speculation on social media that the airlines vaccine mandate was causing a shortage.