LINCOLN, Neb.-
Lincoln Airport says crew shortages for Northwest Airlines’ regional carrier have been hurting service to Nebraska’s capital city.
Bob McNally, the airport operations director, said crew limitation or schedule changes had canceled 20 Northwest Airlink flights in the past 30 days.
It happened most often on Northwest Airlink’s last daily flight into Lincoln from Minneapolis and the first flight out the next day back to Minneapolis, he said.
Pinnacle Airlines of Memphis, Tenn., operates the Airlink flights.
Pinnacle’s vice president for marketing, Philip Reed, said there were only 10 crew-related cancellations in Lincoln since Feb. 1 and 19 other cancellations in February and March because of weather or maintenance issues.
The airline has a total of 84 flights a week to and from Lincoln, Reed said Thursday.
The crew-caused cancellations began in February, he said, and passengers were contacted two weeks in advance so they could rebook.
The shortage arose because several Pinnacle pilots were taking jobs with major airlines, he said.
The problem affected a few other cities, Reed said, and for the most part has been rectified, although there may a few more cancellations through March.
Some of the Northwest customers had to fly out of Omaha instead, the Airport Authority board was told Tuesday, and some took United Airlines flights.
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Pinnacle Airlines:
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Information from: Lincoln Journal Star,
