Funviralpark All Southwest flights to and from Philadelphia International Airport were canceled Wednesday morning as the airline’s travel woes continue.
As of 7:45 a.m., 23 Southwest flights had been canceled, according to tracking website FlightAware. Twenty-two Southwest Airlines flights have already been canceled on Thursday as airlines continue to grapple with flight cancellations stemming from deadly winter storms that have disrupted air travel since late last week.
Southwest Airlines has been hit harder than any other airline, with massive disruptions continuing across the country. Of the more than 2,700 US domestic flights canceled Wednesday, more than 2,500 are to the Southwest.
The problem is expected to last through Thursday, with more than 2,300 Southwest Airlines flights already canceled. The travel disruption is being scrutinized by federal officials looking for answers.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told CNN on Tuesday night: “As far as I know, Southwest Airlines has not been able to locate the passengers, baggage, or even the crew.”
“We have made it clear that our department will hold us accountable to our customers in order to get through this situation and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Buttigieg said.
Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan apologized to employees and customers in a video posted on the airline’s website Tuesday night.
“We really have some work to do to get this right,” Jordan said.
The Southwest’s problems appear to be a combination of factors, including a busy holiday travel season and deadly winter storms that have affected much of the country. Chicago Midway International Airport and Denver International Airport (home to her two hub airports, the largest in the Southwest) were hit particularly hard by the storm, killing at least 28 people.
Unlike other airlines, Southwest Airlines uses a point-to-point system. That is, the plane travels from destination to destination without returning to the hub (for example, Philadelphia International is a hub for American Airlines). This means that bad weather only affects a single route across the country. According to the New York Times, back up your entire system.
Add to Traveler Backlog: Southwest Airlines has a policy of not rebooking passengers on other airlines.
As a result of the storm, crew members were displaced and unable to be in the cities the airline needed to continue operations. That led to thousands of Southwest cancellations on Monday and Tuesday, according to spokesman Jay McVay.
“We’ve been trying very hard to catch up and get back to normal safely,” McVay told reporters on Tuesday afternoon.
McVeigh also said the airline’s system was incapable of coordinating with the company to change allocations, especially as the storm moved east across the United States and affected many of its major hubs in the Southwest. I acknowledge the problem.
“There wasn’t a lot of technology to answer all these calls and redeploy pilots and flight attendants to the flights they needed, because it was purely human resources,” McVay said.
This is a developing story. Please check the latest information.
