Southwest Airlines canceled more than 4,800 flights for Wednesday and Thursday as its operational meltdown bleeds into a second week with no indication of when it will end.
Dallas-based Southwest canceled 2,509 flights nationwide for Wednesday, about 62% of its schedule, according to Flightaware.com. Those cuts were planned going back to Monday as the company tries to “stabilize” its operation after winter storms and technology meltdowns left the carrier scrambling for crew members to fly and attend to planes.
The cuts will continue Thursday as the company has already cut more than 2,300 flights, 58% of its schedule. The cuts will hit hard at Dallas Love Field, the only North Texas airport Southwest flies to. The company canceled more than 40% of flights in and out of Love Field Thursday, 195 arriving and departing flights in all.
Chicago Midway, Denver and Las Vegas airports are also facing large numbers of preemptive cancellations.
Jack Korbitz, who was visiting family in Nebraska for the holidays, found out his flight to Dallas was canceled hours before his scheduled departure because he happened to check the Southwest app, he said Tuesday. He went to the airport to see whether he could get a different flight out, but a Southwest employee told him he couldn’t get a flight back to Dallas until Friday.
Instead, Korbitz was able to get a rental car and drove almost 10 hours back to Texas. He said he hasn’t been able to successfully reach the airline online or by phone to be reimbursed for the extra expense, though.
Fred Barber of Argyle, Texas, told The Dallas Morning News that his daughter and son-in-law visiting him from Chicago had their Southwest flights canceled twice in two days. Both cancellations happened after the couple checked in, so they weren’t able to rebook in the app or immediately request a refund online, he said.
The couple’s original flight was scheduled for Christmas evening but was canceled around midnight. In order to rebook, they stood in line at Love Field until about 5 a.m.
Southwest employees told Barber that they didn’t have the staff to offload checked luggage from canceled flights. He said they were also told they wouldn’t be compensated for items they had to buy due to the travel delay and luggage situation because the cancellation was weather related.
The family returned to Love Field for the rebooked flight Monday afternoon before finding out it was canceled. Instead of rebooking with Southwest again, they bought a same-day American Airlines flight that departed roughly on time, Barber said.
The delays and customer service issues have prompted an inquiry from the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Southwest CEO Bob Jordan posted a video message Tuesday night to apologize to customers and beg for patience. Jordan has not responded to a request for an interview.
“I want everyone who is dealing with the problems we’ve been facing, whether you haven’t been able to get to where you need to go or you’re one of our heroic employees caught up in a massive effort to stabilize the airline, to know is that we’re doing everything we can to return to a normal operation,” Jordan said in the video. “And please also hear that I’m truly sorry.”
The operational meltdown started last week with cold and windy weather across the country at key Southwest airports including Chicago and Denver. But after delays and cancellations on Thursday and Friday, Southwest’s crew scheduling software buckled under the strain and the company had a hard time assigning pilots and flight attendants.
The problems escalated until Monday night when the carrier decided it needed to cut about two-thirds of its schedule over the coming days to try to “reset” the operation. Between Dec. 22 and 28, the carrier canceled 13,353 flights, affecting as many as 2.3 million people during one of the busiest travel stretches of the year.
“We’re focused on safely getting all of the pieces back into position to end this rolling struggle,” Jordan said in the video. “You know, I have nothing but pride and respect for the efforts of the people of Southwest who are showing up in every way. The tools we use to recover from disruption serve us well 99% of the time, but clearly, we need to double down on our already existing plans to upgrade systems for these extreme circumstances so that we never again face what’s happening right now.”
