Southwest Airlines canceled another 2,350 flights Thursday amid ongoing chaos at airports across the United States that is keeping thousands of travelers stranded, following a historic winter storm that has put the popular low-cost airline's operating capabilities under scrutiny.
The airline, which this Thursday was
responsible for almost all canceled flights in the country
, said this afternoon in a statement that it continued to operate at a third of its capacity, but promised to resume "normal operations" from this Friday.
"We plan to return to normal operations with minimal disruption on Friday, December 30," Southwest said in the statement.
"We are focused on repairing relationships with customers who have been affected."
Passengers on canceled Southwest flights at Midway International Airport, on Dec. 28, 2022. Erin Hooley / AP
The Dallas, Texas-based company acknowledged that "the magnitude and scale of this disturbance stressed our technology and processes, forcing a large number of manual operations," the company, which has been
responsible for, said of the severe weather.
of the cancellation of more than 13,000 flights during the Christmas holidays.
Southwest is the only airline that appears to have yet to recover from operational problems following the weekend storm, which killed at least 76 people across the country.
Employees denounce that the chaos could be avoided
The unions of flight attendants and pilots said that the chaos at the airports could have been avoided, since their members had warned the company for years about the need to modernize its infrastructure, without anyone heeding them, reported the newspaper The Washington Post.
Before the storm, an internal memo dated December 21 also warned of a shortage of workers in Denver, Colorado, one of Southwest's hubs and where the storm hit the hardest.
[“Nobody should be taken advantage of”: Passengers face skyrocketing prices due to flight cancellations]
The Southwest Pilots Association said Wednesday that the collapse of the airline's operations was on notice.
"For more than a decade, a lack of leadership within the organization to adapt, innovate and preserve our operations has led to multiple system disruptions, countless disappointed passengers and millions of dollars in losses," the union said in a statement. release.
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If you still want to reach your destination, most airlines will rebook you for free on the next available flight, as long as it has capacity.
If you want to cancel the trip, contact the airline.
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Major airlines such as Delta, American, Southwest, Air Canada, Alaska, Frontier and Spirit are not charging more for new bookings.
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The company acknowledged that the effects of the storm in Denver and Chicago, another of the sites where its operations are concentrated, affected its ability to maintain the routes that were scheduled, but also ensured that they had sufficient personnel to attend to travelers on the December holidays.
However, Vice President of Operations Chris Johnson declared an "operational state of emergency" due to an "unusually high number of absences" from workers in Denver calling in sick or requesting days off, according to the memo reviewed by The Washington Post.
Union representatives blamed the failures on
the company's obsolete systems
and assured that the workers were subjected to shifts of between 16 and 18 hours a day and that some suffered serious injuries due to frostbite due to the low temperatures on the airport runways in between of the storm
Travelers choose to travel by road due to flight cancellations and delays
Dec 28, 202202:11
As has been the case with this week's flight cancellations across the country, the impacts this Thursday were almost all on Southwest routes.
Of the more than 2,450 flights canceled this Thursday before noon in the United States, more than 2,350 were Southwest routes, representing 58% of all their trips, according to the FlightAware airspace monitoring service.
The federal government is investigating the actions of the airline and the effects on thousands of consumers.
The airline said it created a site on its website to address complaints and issues from stranded travelers, but thousands of customers continue to report that they are having difficulty contacting agents and rescheduling flights.