Alaska Airlines has tough weekend, but doesn't see a systemic staffing issue

Nick Benson - JetTip.net

Alaska Airline's "Salmon Thirty Salmon II" at MSP in May, 2021.

Alaska Airlines is attributing a rougher than usual weekend to sick calls, weather, and mechanical issues.

Our stats show an unusual wave of cancellations at Alaska Airlines starting Friday and peaking Sunday; FlightAware shows 51 mainline flights (7%) were cancelled yesterday.

In example of the hoops airlines are willing to jump through to keep their network functioning, on Sunday flight 8 (EWR) and 1338 (MSP) canceled their outbound flights from Seattle and flew empty in order to operate the return legs as scheduled.

Regarding Sunday's cancellations, Alaska Airlines says, "approximately half were sick calls which is a slight uptick from previous days but we don’t see a systemic issue in this area. We are still building up staffing from pandemic reduction levels and working to get back to our 2019 staff levels by the end of 2021."

Today FlightAware shows 29, or 4% of Alaska's flights have been canceled, which the airline says has been done to accommodate crews and aircraft that are out of position.

Nick Benson

Nick lives in Burnsville, Minnesota with his wife and three children. He grooves on railroad and aviation photography, politics, geography, weather, and LEGO. He started JetTip's smart flight alert service in 2017, and is now a full-time avgeek. He can frequently be found atop a step ladder at MSP's Aircraft Viewing Area.