Southwest Airlines canceled nearly 450 flights on Monday as relentless winter weather hit major bases for the airline in Baltimore and other carriers scrambled to recover from more than a week’s worth of challenges.
Dallas-based Southwest canceled about 12% of its flight schedule Monday as nearly 2,000 flights nationwide were canceled by the nation’s air travel industry. Winter weather and the omicron variant have left carriers short-staffed with big holiday crowds.
Another 418 Southwest flights were delayed, leaving nearly a quarter of the carrier’s schedule impacted.
Southwest canceled 437 flights on Sunday, according to Flightaware.com, while Fort Worth-based American had 161 cancellations, about 5% of its flight schedule. Delta Air Lines, JetBlue and United Airlines all recorded triple-digit flight cancellations on Sunday as well.
Since Saturday, Southwest has canceled more than 1,300 flights.
Even though North Texas weather was clear Monday, DFW International Airport had 62 cancellations on arriving and departing flights, about 3% of all flights scheduled, according to FlightAware. Dallas Love Field, Southwest’s major hub, had 34 cancellations or about 5% of flights.
“Our planners continue their work to anticipate operational challenges today following the winter storm that moved across the country over the weekend, creating a band of heavy winter weather affecting the Baltimore/D.C. area Monday morning,” said Southwest Airlines spokeswoman Alyssa Foster. “Canceling hundreds of flights causes disruption across our operational system. A displacement of aircraft and employees of that magnitude brings other issues, including staffing challenge.”
Monday’s schedules were only slightly better than Sunday, even with a lighter travel day expected. Regional carriers SkyWest and Republic, which fly for several airlines, canceled hundreds of flights, as did JetBlue, United, Delta and Delta’s regional carrier Endeavor.
The Transportation Security Administration recorded more than 2 million passengers on Sunday to finish the holiday travel season, a period where more than 45 million passengers have traveled through checkpoints going back to Dec. 12. It’s been, by far, the busiest travel period since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020, although air travel is still 10% to 20% below pre-pandemic levels.
This weekend’s winter weather nationwide has been particularly hard on Southwest Airlines, which counts Denver International Airport and Chicago’s Midway Airport as its two biggest bases. Both areas were hit by heavy snowstorms and the wave of storms that hit the upper Midwest has now moved east to the Atlantic seaboard, dropping snow and plunging temperatures in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. region.
There are still lingering problems in places such as Denver, where Southwest’s operations have slowed because “the extreme cold requires additional safety protocols for our people working outside there,” Foster said.
Unlike other airlines, Southwest has said that surging COVID-19 cases has not impacted operations due to being short-staffed, although weather has created similar problems with aircraft and crew being out of place.
