World News | Southwest Airlines Flight Cancellations Continue to Snowball
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. Families hoping to catch a Southwest Airlines flight after days of cancellations, missing luggage and missed family connections suffered through another wave of scrubbed flights, with another 2,500 pulled from arrival and departure boards on Wednesday.
Dallas (US), Dec 28 (AP) Families hoping to catch a Southwest Airlines flight after days of cancellations, missing luggage and missed family connections suffered through another wave of scrubbed flights, with another 2,500 pulled from arrival and departure boards on Wednesday.
Exhausted travellers sought passage by other means using different airlines, rental cars, or trains — or they've simply given up.
According to the FlightAware tracking service, more than 91 per cent of all cancelled flights in the US early on Wednesday were from Southwest, which has been unable to recover from ferocious winter storms that raked large swaths of the country over the weekend.
The operational systems of Southwest have been uniquely effected, so much so that the federal government is now investigating what happened at the Dallas carrier, which has frustrated its own flight and ground crews as well.
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This week, with cancellations from other major airlines ranging from none to 2 per cent, Southwest has cancelled nearly 10,000 flights as of Wednesday and warned of thousands more Thursday and Friday, according to FlightAware.
In a video that Southwest posted late on Tuesday, CEO Robert Jordan said Southwest would operate a reduced schedule for several days but hoped to be "back on track before next week.”
Jordan blamed the winter storm for snarling the airline's “highly complex” network. He said Southwest's tools for recovering from disruptions work “99 per cent of the time, but clearly we need to double down" on upgrading systems to avoid a repeat of this week.
“We have some real work to do in making this right,” said Jordan, a 34-year Southwest veteran who became CEO in February. “For now, I want you to know that we are committed to that.”
The airline is now drawing unwanted attention from Washington.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has criticized airlines for previous disruptions, said his agency would examine the causes of Southwest's widespread cancellations and whether the airline was meeting its legal obligations to stranded customers.
“Because what we're seeing right now, from the system and the flights themselves to the inability to reach anybody on a customer service phone line, it is just completely unacceptable,” Buttigieg told CBS early on Wednesday.
In Congress, the Senate Commerce Committee also promised an investigation. Two Senate Democrats called on Southwest to provide “significant” compensation for stranded travellers, saying that the airline has the money because it plans to pay USD 428 million in dividends next month. (AP)
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)