MIDLAND, Texas — Anyone flying with American Airlines over the last few days likely saw some of the delays, even if the delays or cancellations didn't affect their flight.
However, with over 21,000 flights in a four day period, over 2,000 of those flights either got delayed or where canceled completely. American Airlines did try to rebook those flights for the same day.
Midland International Air and Space Port only had 32 American Airlines flights leave over the last few days, but none were canceled and only three were delayed.
This means that travelers coming into Midland and Odessa weren't as likely to experience many difficulties with the airline. Rather, travelers would likely experience difficulties on connecting flights that run through Dallas and Fort Worth, the area where most of the strong crosswinds took place.
In fact, the COO for American Airlines did address the issues on Saturday.
"This week saw two days of severe winds in DFW, with gusts of up to 50 mph on Thursday, creating crosswind limitations that sharply reduced arrival capacity by more than half. This weather drove a large number of cancellations at DFW, as we could only use two runways instead of the usual five that handle our operation,” David Seymour said.
According to Seymour, this led to an issue with staffing as well. The airline said that crew members were out of their regular flight sequences which caused American Airlines to proactively cancel flights.
Moving forward, American Airlines is working to bring more staff in. Nearly 1,800 flight attendants are returning from leave on November 1 with the remainder coming back by December 1. The airline will also have over 600 new hire flight attendants by the end of December.