Aircraft are deiced at General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee
Reuters
Flight cancellations eased further on Monday but disruptions from severe winter weather across the U.S. lingered, particularly for Southwest Airlines, on the tail end of Christmas weekend.
Airlines have canceled greater than 17,000 U.S. flights since Wednesday, based on FlightAware, as storms brought snow, ice, high winds and bitter cold across the country, derailing air travel from coast to coast. Those conditions slowed down ground crews as they faced severe conditions at airports.
Carriers are more likely to detail the prices of the disruptions once they report results next month, if not earlier.
Southwest Airlines was hit particularly hard by winter weather over the vacation travel period, together with other issues including unexpected fog in San Diego and staffing shortages at a fuel vendor in Denver, the carrier’s chief operating officer told staff.
Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, United Airlines, JetBlue Airways and Alaska Airlines were among the many carriers affected by the weather that hit last week but had a smaller share of cancellations on Monday.
Southwest had been canceling many flights proactively in an effort to stabilize its operation, COO Andrew Watterson said. From Wednesday through Saturday, a couple of quarter of Southwest’s flights were canceled, and two-thirds were delayed, based on FlightAware data.
The airline apologized to employees for the chaos, which left many struggling to come up with crew scheduling services, making it harder to get reassignments or make other changes, or get hotel rooms. Southwest also offered flight attendants working over the vacation extra pay.
“A part of what we’re suffering is a scarcity of tools,” Southwest CEO Bob Jordan said in a message to staff on Sunday. “We have talked an awful lot about modernizing the operation, and the necessity to do this. And Crew Scheduling is one in all the places that we’d like to speculate in. We want to give you the chance to provide solutions faster.”
Some pilots were forced to sleep at airports because they were unable to seek out hotel rooms, said Casey Murray, president of Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, the pilots’ union.
Southwest’s problems continued on Monday while other carriers stabilized. The carrier had canceled greater than 2,300 flights, 58% of its schedule, and 820 more were delayed. Delta had canceled 8% of its mainline flights on Monday, United 5% and American lower than 1% with 12 flights scrubbed.
Greater than 3,200 U.S. flights were canceled on Monday, and shut to five,000 were delayed.
Airlines often cancel flights proactively during bad weather to avoid having planes, crews and customers misplaced, problems that could make recovery from a storm tougher.
Carriers also planned smaller schedules for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day compared with the times leading as much as the vacations, making it harder for them to rebook travelers on other flights, and bookings had spiked.
Passengers check in on the Delta counter at Detroit Metro Airport in Romulus, Michigan, on December 22, 2022.Â
Jeff Kowalsky | AFP | Getty Images
An American Airlines spokeswoman said the “overwhelming majority of our customers affected by cancellations were in a position to be reaccommodated.”
Delta is “seeing regular recovery in our operations, and expect the improvements to proceed over the following several hours,” a spokesman said Monday.
Passengers also faced delayed luggage, nevertheless.
Bill Weaver, 41, said he, his wife and five children drove from Wichita, Kansas to Dallas Fort Value International Airport for a Friday flight to Cancun after their connecting flight into the American Airlines hub was canceled. The American Airlines flight to Cancun arrived on time but their luggage didn’t get to in Cancun until Monday, and hadn’t made it to their hotel by mid-morning, so that they needed to spend tons of of dollars to purchase clothing and other essentials at their hotel.
Weaver, who works in software sales, said he used to travel ceaselessly.
“I’m used to missing bags and things occur but that is by far the worst I’ve ever seen,” he said.
Extreme cold and high winds slowed ground operations at dozens of airports. Greater than half of U.S.-based airlines’ flights arrived late from Thursday through Saturday, with delays averaging 81 minutes, based on FlightAware.
“Temperatures have fallen so low that our equipment and infrastructure have been impacted, from frozen lav systems and fuel hoses to broken tow bars,” said United Airlines message to pilots on Saturday. “Pilots have encountered frozen locks when attempting to re-enter the jet bridge after conducting walk arounds.”
The FAA said it needed to evacuate its tower at United hub Newark Liberty International Airport in Latest Jersey due to a leak on Saturday.
JetBlue, meantime, offered flight attendants triple pay to select up trips on Christmas Eve on account of staffing shortages.
