DALLAS (AP) — Southwest Airlines grounded thousands of flights again Tuesday in the wake of the massive winter storm that wrecked U.S. holiday travel plans, and the federal government said it would investigate why the company stayed so long time to track other carriers.
A day after most US airlines had recovered from the storm, Southwest canceled another 2,600 flights on the East Coast in the late afternoon. Those flights accounted for more than 80 percent of the 3,000 canceled trips nationwide on Tuesday, according to tracking service FlightAware.
And the chaos seemed to continue. The airline also canceled 2,500 flights for Wednesday and nearly 1,400 for Thursday as it tries to restore order to its disrupted schedule.
At major operating airports in the Southwest, customers stood in long lines hoping to get a seat on another flight. They described waiting hours for help, only to be interrupted. Some tried to rent cars to get to their destination faster. Others found places to sleep on the floor. Luggage piled up in huge piles.
Conrad Stoll, a 66-year-old retired construction worker from Missouri, was planning to fly from Kansas City to Los Angeles for his father’s 90th birthday party until his Southwest flight was canceled early Tuesday. He said he won’t even be able to see his 88-year-old mother.
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“I was there in 2019, and she looked at me and said, ‘I’m never going to see you again,'” Stoll said. “My sister took care of them and she says exactly, ‘I forgive her very, very quickly.’
Stoll hopes to have another chance to see her parents in the spring when the weather is warmer.
In a video posted by Southwest on Tuesday, CEO Robert Jordan said Southwest will operate on a reduced schedule for several days but hopes to be “back on track before next week.”
Jordan blamed the winter storm for snarling the airline’s “very complex” network. He said Southwest’s outage recovery tools work “99 percent of the time, but clearly we need to double down” on updating systems to avoid a repeat of the week.
“We have work to do to get things right,” said Jordan, a 34-year Southwest veteran who became executive director in February. “For now, I want you to know that we are committed to this.”
The problems began over the weekend and escalated on Monday as Southwest canceled more than 70 percent of its flights.
This is after the worst of the storm has passed. The airline said many pilots and flight attendants were unable to fly. Union leaders representing Southwest pilots and flight attendants blamed outdated crew scheduling software and criticized company management.
Casey Murray, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, said the airline failed to address problems that caused a similar crisis in October 2021.
“There’s a lot of frustration because this is preventable,” Murray said. “The airline cannot connect the flight crews. The airline didn’t even know where the pilots were.”
Murray said managers this week asked pilots at some airports to report to a central location, where they noted the names of the pilots present and forwarded the lists to headquarters.
Lyn Montgomery, president of the transportation workers union that represents Southwest flight attendants, said she and other union leaders have repeatedly told management that the airline’s scheduling technology is not good enough.
“This was something I saw coming,” he said. “This is a very catastrophic event.”
The airline is now drawing unwanted attention from Washington.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has criticized airlines for past disruptions, said his agency will look into the causes of Southwest’s widespread cancellations and whether the airline is meeting its legal obligations to stranded customers.
“While we all understand that you can’t control the weather, this clearly crossed the line from an uncontrollable weather situation to something that is the direct responsibility of the airline,” Buttigieg told “NBC Nightly News.” He said Southwest should at least pay cash refunds for canceled flights and cover stranded passengers’ room and board costs.
In Congress, the Senate Commerce Committee has also promised an investigation. Two Democratic senators have called on Southwest to provide “significant” compensation for stranded passengers, saying the airline has the cash because it expects to pay $428 million in dividends next month.
Bryce Burger and his family were supposed to be on a cruise to Mexico from San Diego on Dec. 24, but their flight from Denver was canceled without warning. The flight was rebooked through Burbank, CA, but that flight was canceled while they were waiting at the gate.
via the Associated Press
“It’s awful,” Burger said by phone Tuesday from Salt Lake City, where the family decided to drive after canceling their cruise.
The family’s luggage is still at the Denver airport, and Burger isn’t sure if he can get a refund for the cruise because the flight to California was booked separately.
The size and severity of the storm wreaked havoc on many airlines, though the largest number of flight cancellations Tuesday were at airports where Southwest is a major carrier, including Denver, Chicago Midway, Las Vegas, Baltimore and Dallas.
Spirit Airlines and Alaska Airlines both canceled about 10 percent of their flights, with much lower cancellation rates for American, Delta, United and JetBlue.
Kristie Smiley had planned to fly home to Los Angeles until Southwest canceled her flight Tuesday, so she waited at the Kansas City airport for her mother to pick her up. Southwest can’t put her on another plane until New Year’s Sunday.
Smiley said the airline continued to blame the weather after the storm passed and did not tell passengers why the planes could not take off.
“They liked that they acted like (Tuesday’s flight) was gone until they started saying, ‘Oh, five more minutes.’ Oh, 10 more minutes. I’m not sure what’s going on with them. It seems a bit off,” she said.
Danielle Zanin vowed never to fly Southwest again after four days, numerous canceled flights and sleeping at the airport before she, her husband and their two children flew home to Illinois from Albuquerque, New Mexico. They made stops at Denver and Phoenix airports and arrived in Chicago only after ditching Southwest and paying $1,400 for four one-way tickets on American Airlines.
“I remember saying, ‘Oh my god, we’re getting on a plane!’ I was really shocked because I thought we would be stuck in airports forever,” she said.
Zanin plans to seek reimbursement for a portion of their original tickets as well as the new ones for Americans, plus additional expenses for rental cars, parking, an Uber ride and food — about $2,000 in total.
“I have no faith that they will make a big deal out of anything,” she said.
Associated Press writers Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Missouri, Thalia Beaty in New York and Sophie Austin in Sacramento, California contributed to this story.
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