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- Almost 1 in 5 American Airlines flights on Saturday were canceled.
- The company said bad weather and staff shortages were to blame.
- Chief Operating Officer David Seymour said more stable operations should resume next month.
American Airlines has canceled or delayed hundreds of flights this Halloween weekend because of bad weather and staff shortages.
Throughout the weekend so far, the airline canceled close to 1,000 flights.
FlightAware, an aviation tracking tool, showed that 541, or 20%, of the airline's flights, were canceled as of 11 p.m. on Saturday. Another 401 flights were delayed.
On Friday, FlightAware noted that the 342 American flights were canceled and 737 were delayed.
In a statement to Insider, American shared a letter to staff from Chief Operating Officer David Seymour that said high wind gusts on Thursday cut capacity at the airline's largest hub in Dallas-Fort Worth and crew members ended up out of their regular flight sequences, which means they weren't in the right position to catch their next flights.
FlightAware also shows preemptive cancellations for 479 flights on Sunday.
"To make sure we are taking care of our customers and providing scheduling certainty for our crews, we have adjusted our operation for the last few days this month by proactively canceling some flights," Seymour wrote.
Seymour said most customers impacted were rebooked the same day and he expects flight schedules to be more stable starting next month.
He added that around 1,800 flight attendants would return from leave on November 1 and more will be back by December 1, in addition to more than 600 new hires. Additionally, American is hiring more pilots and airport crew to help with the upcoming holiday season.