Southwest CEO Smacks Down Speculation Opposition to Vaccine Mandates Caused Mass Cancellations

Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly says there is “no evidence” that opposition to COVID-19 vaccine mandates caused the cancellation of over 2,000 flights over the weekend.

During an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Tuesday, Kelly said a “series of FAA Florida delay programs on Friday” was behind the disruptions.

He explained, “About half of our airplanes touch the state of Florida. Orlando, as an example, had a ground stop for seven hours. So it just put the airline way behind on Friday. So there were no issues over the weekend. That’s absolutely true. But I think any industry expert knows that it takes several days, if you have that large of an impact on the operations, to get the airplanes where they need to be and then to match the crews up with that.”

Host George Stephanopolous noted that Spirit Airlines also experienced issues, but he added, “It seems like Southwest really bore the brunt of this.”

“Why Southwest?” he asked.

Kelly responded, “I think it’s what I said. I think over half of our fleet touches the state of Florida. We have a linear route system. We’re just different. And, you know, I can’t really speak to what their issues were or weren’t. Everyone was impacted on Friday, and everyone was impacted in a very big way.”

When Stephanopoulos noted that there was speculation that opposition to vaccine mandates was behind the cancellations, Kelly said, “There’s just no evidence of that.”

“The vaccine mandate obviously is controversial, and it’s not anything that I wish for our company. This is a government mandate, it’s a presidential order, and we’re doing our best to comply with that according to the deadlines that have been set,” he added.

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From Saturday to Monday, Southwest canceled over 2,000 flights and had delays which it said was due to bad weather and air traffic control issues.