Southwest Airlines said it expects to return close to a normal flight schedule Friday after the carrier was forced to cancel thousands of flights during the busy Christmas travel season, in a meltdown aggravated by a winter storm and the company's outdated technology.
Hundreds of thousands of travelers continued to bear the brunt of the airline's challenges on Thursday, with Southwest again cancelling over half of its flights.
Ahead of the New Year's weekend, Southwest now says a recovery is in sight.
"We are encouraged by the progress we've made to realign Crew, their schedules, and our fleet," the company said in a statement. "With another holiday weekend full of important connections for our valued Customers and Employees, we are eager to return to a state of normalcy."
The severe weather has exacerbated staff shortages caused by the "tripledemic," that's left employees sickened with COVID-19, the flu and RSV.
But it was a breakdown of the airline's old computer system used for crew scheduling that has turned otherwise challenging weather-fueled disruptions into what experts have called an "unprecedented" airline meltdown.
Like so many, April Proveaux and her family of five were stuck in Denver for four days with no luggage.
"We were told that night that our bags had already flown to Memphis," she said. "Which didn't make sense to us because no flights had taken off."
Sure enough, when they finally got to Memphis, it turned out their bags had been in Denver the whole time. On Wednesday night, to her shock, the luggage was delivered to her door.
In an apology statement issued Wednesday, Southwest said passengers can apply online for baggage returns, flight refunds and travel expenses from this week's disruption.
Still, Proveaux remains skeptical about getting back the $1,500 she says her family spent while stranded.
By Thursday afternoon, there were still few signs of relief: More than 2,300 Southwest flights had been canceled, according to airline tracker FlightAware. In comparison, Frontier, which had the second-most cancellations by a U.S. airline at that time, had 19 flights drop off its schedule.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
