Benzinga | Aug 6, 2021 04:16PM EDT

What's Causing Spirit Airlines' Massive Flight Cancellations?

Spirit Airlines Incorporated (NYSE:SAVE) is facing a nightmare scenario as the budget carrier canceled more than 1,700 flights since the beginning of this week and will continue to cancel flights through the weekend.

What Happened: Spirit's crisis began to overheat on Tuesday and Wednesday with more than 60% of its flights being canceled, according to USA Today, while on Thursday it canceled 56% of its flights. As of Friday morning, one in three Spirit flights were canceled.

The Miramar, Florida-headquartered carrier blamed its problems on "operational challenges" and staffing issues. President and CEO Ted Christie pleaded for patience as the carrier attempted to address its problems.

"When we reach this level of disruption, being able to recover does require a lot of resources, we're not built to deal with this level of disruption and I think there's some learning in there about how we might create variability in staffing so that we can deal with it," he said in an ABC News interview.

Click here to learn whether Power Hour Podcast team is long or short on Spirit Airlines Incorporated (NYSE:SAVE)

"When we started canceling, our crews got dislocated throughout the system. They were in the wrong places at the wrong time, and we needed to start to build that puzzle back together again. And, unfortunately, that takes our group a lot of time to do. So, we started canceling deeper and deeper into the operation to give them that time."

Christie added that the airline is "starting to turn the tide here and get our operation moving again," although he admitted cancellations would still occur over the next few days.

The U.S. Department of Transportation stated that travelers whose flights have been canceled are .a refund -- and when Christie was asked what the massive cancellations would cost the airline, he responded, "The math will come when the math comes."

Related Link: United Airlines Demands Employees Get COVID-19 Vaccinations Or Risk Being Fired

What Else Is Happening: According to the online resource FlightAware.com, which tracks flight delay and cancellation statistics, Spirit has the third highest level of cancellations among the world's carriers for Friday morning, with 273 cancellations -- or 35% of its scheduled flights -- as of 10:45 a.m. EDT.

Only China Eastern Airlines Corp. Ltd. ADR (NYSE:CEA) and Air China Ltd. (OTC:AIRYY) recorded more cancellations for Friday morning, with 828 and 334, respectively. The closest that a U.S. carrier comes to Spirit's percentage is American Airlines Group Inc (NASDAQ:AAL) with 22 canceled flights.

Photo: Victor / Flickr Creative Commons.