Airlines canceled more than 2,800 flights Tuesday morning, the majority of them — 2,526 flights — with Southwest Airlines, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. In California, hundreds of flights have been delayed or canceled through the end of the week — making up much of the Southwest schedule.
As of Tuesday at 9:30 a.m., at least 60 flights originating at Los Angeles International Airport were canceled, and at least 55 were delayed.
Andy Robinson waited in line at the Southwest Terminal for a hotel voucher after his flight home to Denver was canceled. He and his family had flown to L.A to watch the Denver Broncos play the Rams at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood on Christmas Day — a game that resulted in a crushing defeat for the Broncos.
“That just added to our misery,” Robinson said. Robinson managed to snag a flight home on Thursday that keeps getting jostled by cancellations and other delays. “I’m trying to look at it positively. I’m in California,” said Robinson, whose relative suggested they drive to Denver. “I’m in flipflops.”
Michael Migliorini, a contractor from Portland, Ore., was another flier deserted at LAX Tuesday morning who tried looking on the bright side after his 5 a.m. flight was canceled and tickets with other airlines proved to be too expensive.
“I couldn’t think of a better place to be stranded,” Migliorini said wryly.
At Hollywood Burbank Airport 18 outbound Southwest flights — or two-thirds of its services — were canceled, according to the mobile flight tracker Flightview.
John Wayne Airport in Orange County had 51 outbound Southwest flights canceled and seven delayed Tuesday morning, while San Diego saw some of the biggest disruptions, with 89 departing Southwest flights canceled and 28 delayed, according to Flight Aware.
Southwest CEO Bob Jordan told the Wall Street Journal the airline planned to operate at around one-third of regular capacity as it tries to regroup and get the schedule back on track.
“This is the largest scale event that I’ve ever seen,” he said.
All flights showed as unavailable on the company’s website Tuesday morning. In an email, Southwest spokesperson Chris Perry said that inventory to book travel is “very low,” but there are flights still operating.
The nightmarish travel scenario played out similarly on Monday, in which 4,000 flights were canceled. Southwest Airlines dropped nearly 70% of its scheduled flights nationwide — some 2,905 flights, far more than any other major U.S. carrier — as of Monday evening, according to FlightAware.
(Eugene Garcia/Associated Press)
Southwest Airlines blamed a catastrophic winter storm that swept across the northern half of the country over the holiday weekend for the cancellations, adding in a statement that “our heartfelt apologies for this are just beginning. … We recognize falling short and sincerely apologize.”
Kate Schelter drove five hours from Oakland to Los Angeles Monday with her two children after her Southwest flight was repeatedly delayed. She and her kids, ages 9 and 12, struggled to retrieve their bags before hitting the road.
“There was no organization [in Oakland], just bags everywhere,” Schelter, 43, said. “I saw elderly people hunched over and sleeping in their wheelchairs. It was really sad.”
Schelter, who went to L.A. for vacation, was able to pick up her family’s bags up from LAX on Tuesday morning.
Schelter and her daughters had gone to Los Angeles because they got tickets to Universal Studios for Christmas. She waited in a long line Tuesday morning for a refund after making the long drive.
Furious and weary travelers with experiences similar to Schelter’s unloaded on Twitter, flooding Southwest with reports of the headaches they’ve encounter and continue to face. Passengers described waiting on long lines that extended outside of airport terminals, missing luggage that in some cases traveled onward despite canceled flights or piled up unclaimed for days, waiting on customer service calls for hours or repeatedly getting disconnected, and trying to navigate a glitchy website.
Some passengers said they didn’t receive an email or text message about their flight’s status, and instead learned through a notice on the company’s app from Flight Aware or from family and friends.
Maria Valenciano Ramos and her husband Geronima Ramos Jr. were hoping to visit their daughter in Nashville this week but but their Southwest Airlines flight on Monday was canceled, they said. They spent three hours on hold with customer service only to have their re-booked flight canceled.
The finally decided to the Southwest Terminal at the airport Tuesday morning in desperation. The couple eventually re-booked their travel for Jan. 1, the soonest available flight, with no return date set. Other airlines running a similar route were charging up to $1,600 more per ticket, Ramos Jr. said.
“This has changed our whole schedule, our whole holidays,” Valenciano Ramos said. “It’s sad.”
Many also questioned the airline’s statement that the weather was the culprit, pointing out that other airlines were operating with fewer disruptions and that part of the problem could be a staffing issue.
The cancellations even affected the Los Angeles political class. Newly elected L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath was left stranded in Las Vegas after her flight on Southwest back to Los Angeles was canceled, she said on Twitter Monday evening.
Horvath said that no other flights were available to book on Southwest, and that any other flight back to Los Angeles would cost an inordinate amount of money.
“Because of @SouthwestAir my only chance at getting home is to spend $400+ one way on another airline & arrive [Tuesday] afternoon (& cancel vet appt & work mtgs). Un. Real. Who can afford this? Not working families or young people who get to go home once a year for holidays,” Horvath said in a tweet.
The paralyzing winter storm hit two of Southwest’s biggest hubs particularly hard, Chicago and Denver.
The U.S. Department of Transportation said Monday afternoon that it was “concerned by Southwest’s unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays,” as well as reports of a “lack of prompt customer service.”
“The Department will examine whether cancellations were controllable and if Southwest is complying with its customer service plan,” the agency said in a tweet.