Southwest Airlines has canceled more than 70% of its flights as terrible weather conditions continue to interrupt the travel plans of thousands of passengers.
On Wednesday, roughly 2,600 cancellations were made, with Southwest accounting for virtually all of them. According to CNN, the remaining US airlines account for slightly more than 100 of the cancellations.
Other competitors, such as Alaska Airlines, had 10% of their flights canceled, while United Airlines had only 2%.
“With consecutive days of extreme winter weather across our network behind us, continuing challenges are impacting our customers and employees in a significant way that is unacceptable,” Southwest said in a statement.
“As we continue the work to recover our operation, we have made the decision to continue operating a reduced schedule by flying roughly one-third of our schedule for the next several days.”
Southwest Airlines is claimed to have gone bankrupt due to a mix of causes. Aside from the winter storm delays, they include aggressive flight scheduling and antiquated infrastructure.
Winter storm kills 60 across US; over 15,000 flights canceled
Southwest has had the most cancellations of any airline in the last several days.
On Tuesday, more than 4,700 flights were scheduled to depart, with Southwest accounting for 54% of those.
According to the flight-tracking website FlightAware, Southwest canceled over 2,800 flights on Monday, accounting for 70% of its operations.
The rash of cancellations has enraged the US Department of Transportation, which has promised to hold Southwest responsible for the turmoil.
US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said he spoke with Southwest CEO Bob Jordan about the flight disruptions on Tuesday.
“Their system really has completely melted down,” Buttigieg told CNN on Tuesday.
“I made clear that our department will be holding them accountable for their responsibilities to customers, both to get them through this situation and to make sure that this can’t happen again.”
