FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – After days of cancelations, Spirit Airlines travelers arrived at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport hoping operations were finally back to normal. Thankfully, they were.
“I came out on Tuesday and my flight was cancelled,” explained a passenger. “They said come back today. Hopefully I get to my destination.”
This is just one of the dozens of passengers who say they were stranded due to flights being canceled earlier this week.
“[I was] checking every day going to the site seeing, ‘On time, on time, on time,’” says a passenger. “So, we’re lucky,” they said.
Thursday morning was a completely different Spirit Airlines terminal compared to Wednesday, when passengers were hearing about one cancelation after the other.
According to Spirit Airlines, they’ve been facing “operational challenges” for days. However, they haven’t truly given an explanation.
Local 10 News has even tried to get to the bottom of the issue, sending crews to a home that, according to records, belongs to Spirit Airlines CEO Ted Christie.
No one was home, however, and there was no answer at Spirit’s Miramar headquarters, Tuesday.
By Thursday morning, Spirit finally provided a statement with some insight on what’s been going on, saying, in part:
“We’ve dealt with overlapping operational challenges including weather, system outages, and staffing shortages that caused widespread irregularities in our operation and impacted crew scheduling…”
American Airlines has also been in a tough spot, where a long line was seen at the rebooking center. The carrier already canceled more than 3,000 flights.
American says severe weather in Dallas beginning Sunday and leading into Monday morning forced the delays and cancellations.