Joshua Roberts/Reuters
- American Airlines has canceled hundreds of flights this weekend, ABC News reported Sunday.
- The company canceled flights due to staffing and maintenance issues.
- American plans to cancel dozens more per day through July amid a surge in travel.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
American Airlines has canceled hundreds of flights scheduled for the weekend and Monday due to staffing shortages, including employees out sick, as well as maintenance issues, ABC News reported Sunday.
The company canceled 123 flights scheduled for Saturday, 178 for Sunday, and 97 for Monday, mostly involving Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 aircraft, according to ABC.
"We made targeted changes with the goal of impacting the fewest number of customers by adjusting flights in markets where we have multiple options for re-accommodation," American Airlines told ABC in a statement.
American, the world's largest airline, said it also may continue to cancel at least 50 to 60 flights per day during the remainer of June and 50 to 80 flights per day in July, but that it will try to notify customers far ahead of their scheduled flight, according to ABC.
American's flight cancellations come amid a surge in travel as vaccine rates slowly rise and people become more comfortable getting on planes, causing staffing shortages at a number of major airlines and the TSA.
But they also follow American's decision to cut 30% of its support staff, around 1,500 workers, which the company followed by asking employees at its corporate headquarters in Dallas to volunteer to work shifts at nearby Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
On June 13, the TSA recorded more than 2 million people going through airport security across the US - the largest number of screenings since the pandemic started.