With hundreds of Southwest Airlines flights canceled over Christmas weekend, the airline said it hoped for a “full recovery” as the post-holiday travel rush kicked off Tuesday.
According to Southwest Airlines, approximately 300 of the airline’s 4,242 systemwide flights were canceled on Sunday due to the fog at Midway, which serves as the airline’s fourth-largest operation nationwide. More than 100 additional flights were canceled on Christmas Day as the company said their operations were “stable,” looking to stem concerns over a meltdown similar to one in 2022.
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The airline also delayed 2,689 flights, FlightAware data showed.
The cancellations came during and after dense fog in the Chicago area Sunday that caused widespread flight cancellations at Midway International Airport.
The airline said the dense fog that began on Saturday night and continued into Sunday morning prevented inbound aircraft from landing, which forced several diversions and subsequent flight cancellations. A ground stop was issued at one point for all flights departing to Midway Airport Sunday morning.
“We have proactively cancelled 101 flights for Monday (less than 1% of our more than 4300 flights systemwide). We do anticipate a handful of additional cancellations [Monday] as we work toward a full recovery ahead of Tuesday’s operation. We have all-hands on deck as our Employees are working to quickly and safely take care of our Customers during this busy holiday travel season, and we apologize for any inconvenience to those whose travel was affected over the last two days,” a statement from Southwest Airlines said.
As of Tuesday morning, no cancellations were reported at Midway Airport and only three cancellations were reported at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
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The holiday disruption comes one year after an historic travel disruption upended the airline’s operations following a winter storm in the days following Christmas last year, leading to thousands of the airline’s flights being canceled and customers being separated from their luggage.
The airline attributed the 2022 meltdown to the winter storm and “scheduling problems.”
But for millions of people traveling over the holiday, this year was much better than last. Christmas morning put a bow on a relatively smooth weekend.
By midday Monday, only 138 flights within, into or out of the U.S. had been canceled and 1,366 were delayed, according to the tracking website FlightAware.
Auto club AAA predicted that between Saturday and New Year’s Day, 115 million people in the U.S. would travel at least 50 miles (80 kilometers) from home by air or car. That’s up 2% from last year.
