Spirit Airlines Inc. Chief Executive Ted Christie apologized for five days of flight cancellations that upended plans for thousands of people, saying the airline had struggled to resolve problems that spiraled out of control.
The Florida-based budget carrier has canceled over 1,700 flights since Sunday, including 443 on Thursday, over half its schedule for the day, and 120 flights on Friday, according to flight tracking firm FlightAware. The airline canceled 60% of its flights on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“All I can say is we’re very sorry for what’s happened,” Mr. Christie told reporters. “This is a gut punch to everyone.”
Spirit has spent years trying to improve its operation and rehabilitate its image with passengers. The chaotic scenes in some airports this week—as travelers have been stranded, sometimes for days—have been a major setback. Mr. Christie, who has been Spirit’s CEO since 2019, estimated that “tens or hundreds of thousands” of passengers were impacted.
“There’s definitely some angry people,” Mr. Christie said.
“ ‘There’s definitely some angry people’ ”
“This one caught us where we didn’t want to be. We’re going to learn from this and figure out ways to make that better going forward.”
This summer’s fast ramp-up in travel has led to growing pains for several airlines. Airlines and airports have faced staffing shortages, as they have raced to quickly rebuild their operations. On top of that, summer storms have disrupted airline flights around the country.
Mr. Christie said this week’s difficulties were the culmination of a month of delays and operational problems that snowballed until the end of July. By last weekend, the airline had little slack left to recover and get flight crews where they were needed.
Spirit wasn’t initially aggressive enough in canceling flights last weekend when the issues first began, Mr. Christie said. Instead the airline tried to preserve flights but found that decision only extended the trouble and delayed recovery further, he said. The team that handles crew scheduling has also been overwhelmed and unable to keep up, he said.
“We couldn’t get in front of it,” he said.
While he said high numbers of cancellations will likely continue for a few more days, Mr. Christie said Spirit was getting the problem under control and providing cash refunds and working to get customers to their destinations.
“We’re beginning to turn a corner and get our legs underneath us,” he said.
Write to Alison Sider at [email protected]
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