Southwest cancels thousands more flights

The Christmas gifts should have been handed out days ago and the givers should have been there to distribute them. But thousands of people with or without gifts have been stranded at US airports as Southwest Airlines has canceled — and continues to cancel — thousands of flights.

Dallas-based Southwest said Wednesday it could be next week before it resumes normal flight service as it continued to cancel thousands more flights, stranding thousands of irate customers, many holding Christmas gifts meant to be given days ago.

Exhausted travelers sought to book new flights, rent cars or travel by bus to their destinations.

Adontis Barber, a 34-year-old jazz pianist from Kansas City, Missouri, had camped out in the city's airport since his Southwest flight was canceled Saturday and wondered if he would ever get to a New Year's gig in Washington DC.

"I give up," he told The Associated Press. "I'm starting to feel homeless."

By early afternoon on the East Coast, about 90 percent of all canceled flights Wednesday in the US were by Southwest, according to the FlightAware tracking service.

Other airlines recovered from ferocious winter storms that hit large parts of the country over the weekend, but not Southwest. It canceled 2,500 flights Wednesday and 2,300 more for Thursday. Nearly 11,000 Southwest flights have been canceled since Dec 21, according to FlightAware.

Many passengers said on Wednesday that they still hadn't been able to get refunds for canceled flights. And many were without their suitcases, which had somehow arrived at their destination without them or faded into a mass of luggage at an airport baggage claim.

The airline's problems were caused by a combination of factors, the AP reported, including an antiquated crew-scheduling system and a network design that allows cancellations in one region to cascade throughout the country rapidly. Those weaknesses helped cause a similar failure by Southwest in October 2021.

In addition, Southwest lacks agreements with other airlines and could not rebook passengers on competitors' flights, forcing many people to wait days until Southwest clears its backlog.

Meanwhile, rival airlines have capped fares in some cities in response to an influx of last-minute bookings made after the Southwest cancellations.

The moves by rival carriers come after Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called on airlines to cap fares.

"I'm encouraged to see several airlines have now committed to this step — all of them should," he said.

Delta Air Lines implemented fare caps on Tuesday in all markets where Southwest operates, through Jan 2.

American Airlines said on Twitter, "We're doing our part to help get people where they need to be and we're putting a cap on fares for select cities."

A United Airlines spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal that it also was "capping fares in select cities to make sure our flights are available to as many customers as possible".

Buttigieg said Wednesday that "meltdown" was "the only word I can think of to describe what's happening at Southwest Airlines".

"We are past the point where they could say that this is a weather-driven issue," Buttigieg said. He added: "What this indicates is a system failure, and they need to make sure that these stranded passengers get to where they need to go and that they are provided adequate compensation."

Senator Maria Cantwell, the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, said in a statement on Tuesday that the committee would be investigating the causes of Southwest's cancellations and that "the problems at Southwest Airlines over the last several days go beyond weather".

Southwest CEO Bob Jordan apologized to customers in a video on Tuesday night, saying that the "giant puzzle" of staffing could take days to solve.

"Our plan for the next few days is to fly a reduced schedule and reposition our people and planes," Jordan said. "We're making headway, and we're optimistic to be back on track before next week."

Agencies contributed to this story.