Southwest Air Cancellations to Continue into the New Year, ‘We Had a Tough Day’ Says CEO
Southwest Airlines employees at LaGuardia Airport
Flight delays and cancellations that started prior to the Christmas holiday weekend spilled over into Tuesday, and Southwest Airlines posted the vast majority of them.
As of 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, there had been 2,874 cancellations of flights operating within, into, or out of the United States. A full 2,576 of these were Southwest flights, representing 62% of its total scheduled flights for the day. An additional 214 flights were delayed.
On Monday, Boxing Day, there were 4,004 cancellations and 2,909 were Southwest flights, some 71% of its schedule.
Airports in the United States that are most affected by the cancellations are Denver International, followed by Chicago Midway International, Baltimore/Washington International, Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, Dallas Love Field, and Nashville International.
On Monday, Southwest warned that it expects the week’s cancellations and delays to continue for several more days. A spokesman said that the Dallas-based airline will dial back its flight schedule in order to get its operations back on track.
The airline has already cancelled 61% of its flights for Wednesday – some 2,474 – at press time and 604 flights have already been cancelled that were scheduled to operate on Thursday, although that number is likely to greatly increase in the coming days.
Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan told the Wall Street Journal Monday evening that the carrier plans to operate just over a third of its schedule in upcoming days to give itself the ability for crews to get into the right positions.
“We had a tough day today. In all likelihood we’ll have another tough day tomorrow as we work our way out of this,” Jordan told the paper.
“This is the largest scale event that I’ve ever seen,” he added.
Southwest agents told passengers at several airports that stranded passengers would first be able to rebook their flights on Friday, adding that new bookings would not be possible until January 3, 2023.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
