American Airlines Crews Can’t Reach Planes. Slowing Recovery From Fern

Unlucky American was still working hard on Tuesday to recover from Winter Storm Fern. The carrier was hit harder than competitors by the government shutdown, and now it is being hit harder from the January storm, especially in Dallas, its largest hub.

A big problem was getting crews to airplanes.

Dallas is “a skating rink,” CEO Robert Isom told Phil LeBeau on CNBC Tuesday morning. Later, on the earnings call, CFO Devon May put the financial impact from Fern at between $150 million and $200 million.

The problem is that American’s hubs were hit harder than competitors’ hubs by the winter storm, according to Cirium. As of 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, American had cancelled 19.5% of Tuesday flights, while JetBlue had cancelled 11%, Delta had cancelled 6.5% and United had cancelled 1.5%.

Among hubs, Dallas had a 17% cancellation rate, while Washington National had 22%, Charlotte and Philadelphia had 12%. By contrast, Atlanta and Chicago O’Hare had 3% and Denver had 1%.

On Monday, Cirium said, the three New York airports were around 50%, while Dallas was at 41%, Charlotte was at 38% and Washington National was at 48%. Atlanta was at 9% as was Chicago O’Hare.

On the American earnings call on Tuesday morning, Isom said, “The impact of the storm is as significant as anything we’ve ever seen at American. Over the past four days, we’ve had to cancel more than 9,000 flights.” He said it would take another two days to get back to normal.

Employees cited problems getting crews on airplanes.

Dennis Tajer, spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, which represents 16,000 American pilots, said that at most hubs, “Many airplanes are stuck on gates because they’re missing pilots and or flight attendants.”

“American accounted for the hardware but they did not account for the humans that have to fly the airplanes. It’s slightly better today, but no standard of excellence has yet been achieved,” he said. “It’s been a very tough storm. The grade on recovery for American is not so good, but the final grade is yet to be recorded.”

In Charlotte, the weather was clear and operations were returning to normal by noon. Earlier, a flight attendant said, “Passengers are stranded, crews are stranded. Hold times to reach tracking and scheduling are 8-9 hours. Crews are on duty continuously 18 to 22 hours without a hotel, sleeping in airports.”

On Monday night, Heather Garboden, American chief customer officer, apologized to passengers in an email.

“The last 48 hours have been incredibly challenging for those flying through Winter Storm Fern, which continues to present travel challenges across the country,” she wrote. “Five of our nine hubs have been significantly impacted by this large and disruptive storm. Our largest hub at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), which touches a significant number of the flights we operate each day, was hit particularly hard with record-setting conditions.

“Fern is also impacting cities that don’t typically have the infrastructure in place to manage these conditions, which in turn has led to staffing issues as team members plus vendor and federal partners struggle to make their way on the roads,” Garboden wrote.

“We are very sorry for the disruption this weather event has caused, and we thank our team members — many of whom are working overtime and are continuing to safely brave the weather — as they focus on taking care of as many customers as possible,” she wrote.

In the fourth quarter, the government shutdown was the culprit. Isom said the shutdown “hit us hard. It hit us harder than others. We’re really domestically focused.” American reported a $275 million impact from the shutdown, due largely to the impact on travel at the Washington National hub, while Delta reported $200 million and United reported $250 million.