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(New York Post) Southwest Airlines’ chief executive says that passengers ought to prepare for even more cancellations on Tuesday and Wednesday as thousands were left stranded at airports over the storm-battered Christmas holiday weekend.
“We had a tough day today,” Southwest CEO Bob Jordan told The Wall Street Journal on Monday.
“In all likelihood we’ll have another tough day [on Tuesday] as we work our way out of this.”
“This is the largest scale event that I’ve ever seen,” Jordan said.
The airline, the nation’s fourth largest carrier based on number of passengers, canceled more than 70% of its flights on Monday and more than 60% on Tuesday.
Southwest warned that it would operate just over a third of its usual schedule in the days ahead to allow crews to get back to where they needed to be.
“Obviously that will have even more impact on our Customers,” Jordan told employees on Monday.
Thousands of Southwest passengers have been left stranded at airports nationwide thanks to the extreme weather.Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
“But we’ve got to get out of this. We’ve got to get to the point where we’re reliable and we get our Customers, our Crews, our aircraft, everything on track.”
The airline appears to have been hit harder by the weather than other carriers.
American, United, Delta and JetBlue suffered cancellations rates of between zero and 2% by Tuesday.
Southwest passengers brave delays at New York’s LaGuardia Airport.AP
Of the approximately 2,950 flight cancellations in the US by midday on Tuesday, 2,549 were called off by Southwest. That represents more than 60% of its total flights for the day.
Southwest’s rate of cancellation drew the attention of the Biden administration, which called the rate of cancellations “disproportionate and unacceptable.”
The Department of Transportation has said it would investigate.
Shares of Southwest fell by more than 6% as of Tuesday at 3 p.m. Eastern time.
