Experts say several factors contributed to the ongoing Southwest cancelations -- some unavoidable but not all.
The storm hit Chicago and Denver hard, where Southwest has two of its biggest hubs -- Chicago Midway airport and Denver International airport.
Employees also said they have not been able to communicate with the airline, the president of the union that represents Southwest's Flight Attendants told CNN Monday. "We've been having these issues for the past 20 months," he told CNN. "We've seen these sorts of meltdowns occur on a much more regular basis and it really just has to do with outdated processes and outdated IT.""It's phones, it's computers, it's processing power, it's the programs used to connect us to airplanes -- that's where the problem lies, and it's systemic throughout the whole airline," he said.
He said the airline is "committed to and invested in" improving its systems, but "we need to be able to produce solutions faster.""USDOT is concerned by Southwest's unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays Southwest blamed that service meltdown on a combination of bad weather in Florida, a brief problem with air traffic control in the area and a lack of available staff to adjust to those problems. It has admitted it was having service problems caused by short staffing even before the thousands of canceled flights stranded hundreds of thousands of passengers.
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