Allegiant Airlines has suddenly canceled six flights Thursday at St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport.

In a statement, Allegiant said it's because of "operational needs throughout our system." We followed up and asked the airline exactly what that means.

They replied that, essentially, they don't have enough planes in service to handle all 283 of their flights across the continent on Thursday.

"Allegiant is currently operating in our peak travel season, flying a very heavy schedule of flights each day. In addition to this high demand, we have a had a number of unforeseen and unusual events that have taken aircraft out of service," the airline's media relations team emailed us.