South Florida Based Spirit Airlines Expects Flight Cancelations & Delays To Continue
FORT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) -- Trouble at the terminal continues for Spirit Airlines nationwide as a short supply of staff plagues the airline.
One South Florida airport is no exception to cancellations and frustrations.
The CEO of Spirit says that the airline should have canceled more flights in order to reset their schedules due to staff shortages but instead, they tried to maintain flights due to a large number of bookings.
"I've been waiting a long time," said Robert Jerome.
Jerome stayed in the airport well past the twenty-four-hour mark after flying into Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Thursday from Haiti trying to get to friends in Ohio.
"I didn't know that I was going to spend the night at the airport, I was going crazy," said Jerome.
Jerome found out he'd be spending the night inside the airport around 2 a.m.
He a hotel stay was not given, and his jacket became a makeshift pillow.
"I just used it on the floor and slept on it on the floor," said Jerome.
"How many hours of sleep did you get," asked CBS4's Austin Carter.
"Maybe 2 1/2 hours," says Jerome.
The airline's CEO, Ted Christie, told CBS News that the airline is doing everything they can to accommodate passengers.
"It's heart-wrenching. It's a terrible experience, and we're doing our best to make up for that, and I believe we have so that those people are either where they belong, or they're in a hotel or are afforded the option to go somewhere else," says Christie.
CBS News has learned that more than250 flights were canceled Friday and more than 1,700 flights have been canceled since Sunday.
Spirit's CEO says things will likely be back to normal by the middle of next week, and that the number of cancellations will improve.
