Southwest under scrutiny as thousands more flights cancel
Southwest flight cancellations
Airport staff and a person walks around a pile of lost suitcases near the baggage carousel at Midway Airport in Chicago, Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2022, after Southwest Airlines flights were cancelled and delayed during a winter storm
Problems at Southwest Airlines appeared to snowball after the worst of the storm passed. It cancelled more than 70% of its flights Monday, more than 60% on Tuesday, and warned that it would operate just over a third of its usual schedule in the days ahead to allow crews to get back to where they needed to be.
Southwest Airlines scrubbed thousands of flights again Tuesday in the aftermath of the massive winter storm that wrecked Christmas travel plans across the U.S., and the federal government said it would investigate why the company lagged so far behind other carriers.
A day after most U.S. airlines had recovered from the storm, Southwest called off about 2,600 more flights on the East Coast by midafternoon.southwest flight cancellations
Those flights accounted for more than 80 percent of the 3,000 trips that got canceled nationwide Tuesday, according to tracking service FlightAware
And the chaos seemed certain to continue. The airline also scrubbed 2,500 flights for Wednesday and nearly 1,200 for Thursday as it tried to restore order to its mangled schedule.
At airports with major Southwest operations, customers stood in long lines hoping to find a seat on another flight. Some tried to rent cars to get to their destinations sooner.
The Dallas-based airline had little new to say about its woes. The company did not offer any updates on Tuesday morning, and information on the cancellations was last updated on the company’s website Monday.
The problems began over the weekend and snowballed Monday, when Southwest called off more than 70% of its flights.