Lynx’s Achonwa Calls Out WNBA for Commercial Travel, Scheduling Issues

Various players have called out the league for putting them at risk with no mask mandate in place, too.

WNBA teams and players continue to have issues while flying commercial throughout the 2022 season.

On Saturday, Lynx forward Natalie Achonwa detailed her traveling “woes” through a Twitter thread. Ahead of the team’s game on Sunday afternoon in Washington D.C., their flight was canceled. This comes after the team played at home Thursday and then took an early flight to Indiana on Friday.

now, we’re back at the airport to fly to DC for a game tomorrow… but our @AmericanAir flight just got CANCELLED 🙃🙃🙃

— Natalie Achonwa (@NatAchon) July 16, 2022

The 29-year-old mentioned that the staff was attempting to get the team on a new flight so they could still get there Saturday night and practice ahead of Sunday afternoon’s tipoff.

Additionally, Achonwa hinted at how this continuous flying on commercial airlines puts the players at risk for COVID-19.

did I mention tomorrow’s game is at 3P? and is our 3rd game in 4 days? second game on the road + commercial flights. 👍🏽

“health & safety is a priority” - @wnba

— Natalie Achonwa (@NatAchon) July 16, 2022

Achonwa isn’t the first WNBA player this season to bring this issue to light. After Mystics guard Natasha Cloud tested positive for COVID-19 in May, she called out the WNBA about putting the players on commercial flights when the mask mandates stopped.

A day after Cloud tested positive, Storm star Breanna Stewart and some of her teammates also got COVID-19. She called out the commercial flying, too.

Flying commercial has become quite a controversy in the WNBA, especially after the mask mandate was lifted for major airlines, as Cloud noted, too. Now, WNBA players are put at risk when they board an airplane for their away games.

The league has yet to establish charter flights for all teams, like most professional sports teams have.