How One Regional Airline’s Technical Problems Affected Major Carriers

SkyWest Airlines, one of the country’s biggest and most well-known regional airlines, suffered an internal technical problem this week that resulted in 700 flight cancellations.

But the issue affected more than just SkyWest passengers.

The regional carrier also provides flights for four major airlines, including the Big Three – American, Delta, United as well as Alaska.

“SkyWest experienced an internal technical issue, resulting in approximately 700 flight cancellations before the issue was resolved Thursday evening,” SkyWest told USA TODAY in a statement. “We apologize to customers for the inconvenience.”

The issues continued into Friday, where the newspaper said more than 650 flights were canceled according to the flight tracking service FlightAware.

USA Today also revealed that about 220 American Airlines flights were affected and 133 for Alaska.

Delta Air Lines appeared not to be impacted as much, telling the newspaper, “Our technical teams engaged with SkyWest IT to resolve the issue and minimize the impact on our customers. We are working with customers directly to accommodate them to their destination as soon as possible and apologize for the inconvenience.”

It’s certainly not the first time this year that an airline’s technical issues have wreaked havoc. In fact, it’s happened twice to Southwest in the last four months.