Southwest cancels hundreds of flights nationwide amid vax protest rumors

Sunday Update: A Southwest Airlines pilot has emailed Alex Berenson explaining a little of what’s going on.

Air-traffic controllers walking out in protest of vaccine mandates, combined with other issues across the airline’s network, is forcing the Dallas-based carrier to delay and cancel hundreds of flights.

By Saturday afternoon, the flight-tracking website Flight Aware showed Southwest with 568 cancellations and 717 delayed flights nationwide.

Jacksonville airport delays

“Air Traffic Control (ATC) issues and disruptive weather have resulted in a high volume of cancellations throughout the weekend as we work to recover our operation. We appreciate your patience as we accommodate affected Customers as quickly as possible,” Southwest said in an emailed statement.

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After receiving pushback to that initial statement online from those who pointed out that the Federal Aviation Administration’s delay website showed no evidence of delays, the airline issued an updated statement.

“We experienced significant impact in the Florida airports yesterday evening after an FAA-imposed air traffic management program was implemented due to weather and resulted in a large number of cancellations.

“We are working hard behind the scenes to minimize challenges and fully recover the operation as we take care of displaced Crews and Customers as quickly as possible. We will continue to reset our network today and hope to return to close to normal operations as we move into Sunday,” the statement from Southwest read.

Flight Delays

Southwest did not comment on social-media reports that the issues are related to labor action due to vaccine mandates.