Southwest Airlines, which has come under increasing criticism over the number of canceled flights on Monday, said it would operate a third of its scheduled flights “for the next few days”.
Blaming the chaos on their flight schedule on last week’s winter storm, Southwest said in a statement that the winter weather disrupted all of their vacation travel plans, resulting in catastrophic cancellations.
“We were full and prepared for the upcoming holiday weekend when severe weather hit the continent, where Southwest is the largest carrier in 23 of the top 25 U.S. travel markets,” the report said. airline statement to read. “These operating conditions have forced daily changes to our flight schedule at a volume and scale that still have the tools our teams use to restore full airline capacity.”
“This safety-focused work is intentional, ongoing, and necessary to return to normal reliability, which minimizes last-minute disruption,” the statement continued. “As we continue to work to recover our operations, we have made the decision to continue operating on a reduced schedule flying approximately one-third of our schedule for the next few days.”
Flight cancellations come at a time when passengers are looking to get home or to a travel destination after their holiday weekend. The increase in headaches caused by Southwest’s cancellations has attracted numerous customer complaints and scrutiny from the federal government.
The US Department of Transportation said it would look into why there are so many cancellations or delays from Southwest Airlines and whether the airline will “adhere to its customer service plan, as well as all other relevant DOT rules.”
The rigors of winter have caused at least 17,000 flights to be cancelled across the country since Wednesday, but Southwest Airlines has faced scheduling difficulties. While other airlines had a few flights canceled on Monday, Delta with about 300 and United with 130, Southwest had at least 2,893, Selon NBC News.
Southwest Airlines has continued to apologize for its cancellations.
“We acknowledge that we failed and sincerely apologize,” the airline said in its statement.
A huge winter storm continues to hit large parts of the United States on Sunday, killing at least 30 people.
