Southwest Airlines cancels 70 per cent of flights amid winter Storm Elliott

“In all likelihood, we’ll have another tough day tomorrow as we work our way out of this,” CEO says

Southwest Airlines has cancelled thousands of flights in the days following Christmas.

On Monday, the airline cancelled 70 per cent of its schedule – more than 2,800 departures.

That was followed up by another 2,500 cancellations on Tuesday – 62 per cent of its planned flights. About the same number of cancellations have already been made for Wednesday, according to data collected by FlightAware.

On Tuesday, a total of 4,500 flights have been cancelled, with Southwest Airlines accounting for 56 per cent of cancelled departures.

On Wednesday, more than 3,500 flights have been cancelled, with Southwest making up around 70 per cent.

On 26 December, the company issued a statement saying that “with consecutive days of extreme winter weather across our network behind us, continuing challenges are impacting our Customers and Employees in a significant way that is unacceptable”.

“And our heartfelt apologies for this are just beginning,” the company added, arguing that the “operational conditions forced daily changes to our flight schedule at a volume and magnitude that still has the tools our teams use to recover the airline operating at capacity”.

Southwest said that they will “continue operating a reduced schedule by flying roughly one-third of our schedule for the next several days”.

The airline is working to reposition crews who have ended up in areas where they’re not scheduled to be, according to NBC News.

A spokesperson for the airline told NBC News that it doesn’t “have figures to share” on when they will get back to its normal schedule and how many flights had been cancelled already for the rest of the week.

Travellers have shared images of videos on social media of growing piles of bags at Denver International Airport and Chicago’s Midway Airport.

Southwest said that was receiving a high amount of calls and messages and requested that travellers be patient.

Federal transportation officials have said that the number of cancellations is unacceptable.

Brittany Kirk, 41, who arrived in Illinois on December 22 after a delayed flight from Denver, claims her lost luggage near the baggage carousel at Midway Airport in Chicago, Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2022, (AP)

Ihore Konrad told NBC Chicago that he had been stuck at the airport for two days amid the chaos.

“I’m angry as hell, because I see mismanagement,” he said.

Bob Jordan, the CEO of Southwest, told The Wall Street Journal on Monday: “We had a tough day today. In all likelihood, we’ll have another tough day tomorrow as we work our way out of this.”

“This is the largest-scale event that I’ve ever seen,” he added.

A spokesperson for the Department of Transportation said in a statement that the department “is concerned by Southwest Airlines’ disproportionate and unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays as well as the failure to properly support customers experiencing a cancellation or delay”.

“As more information becomes available the Department will closely examine whether cancellations were controllable and whether Southwest is complying with its customer service plan as well as all other pertinent DOT rules,” they added.