American Airlines is offering some flight attendants double pay as it scrambles to get back to normal
CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP via Getty Images
- American Airlines was the worst-affected carrier by Winter Storm Fern.
- Its flight attendants' union said Tuesday evening that many cabin crew were "stranded with no hotels."
- The union also said flight attendants would get double pay to work extra flights on Wednesday.
American Airlines is scrambling to get things back on track after this weekend's winter storm.
It canceled over 400 flights on Wednesday, or about 15% of its schedule, as of 6 a.m. ET, according to data from FlightAware. Competitors like United and Delta had canceled fewer than a dozen.
"Flight attendants are bearing the brunt of the company's inability to recover the operation in the aftermath of Winter Storm Fern," the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, the union for American Airlines cabin crew, said on Tuesday evening.
"Many are stranded with no hotels and broken sequences that the company has been unable to repair," it added.
In an Instagram post, APFA also said that flight attendants would receive double pay for any flights on Wednesday.
American Airlines did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
American was the worst-affected airline as Winter Storm Fern wreaked havoc on much of the US.
In its quarterly earnings on Tuesday, the airline said it had resulted in over 9,000 flight cancellations, which made it the "largest weather-related operational disruption" in American's history.
The airline also estimated that the storm would cost it between $150 million and $200 million.
Dallas-Fort Worth International, American's main hub, was also the most-impacted airport.
In a Monday statement, the airline said a range of adverse weather conditions hampered operations there, including nearly six hours of ice pellets and over three hours of snow.
Four inches of snow fell in 48 hours at the airport, per the National Weather Service.
The impact was also outsize, given that Dallas doesn't have as much infrastructure to handle winter storms as cities in the northeast.
On Tuesday, American Airlines said operations there were "showing considerable day-to-day progress."
It also pointed to difficulties for airline and airport staff to travel to work.
"I apologise to customers," CEO Robert Isom told CNBC on Tuesday morning. "We're gonna get back on track, I think, over the next two, three days. We should be there as the sun comes out, and at DFW as things thaw out."