Southwest Airlines said it expects to return to normal operations Friday after slashing about two-thirds of its schedule in recent days, including canceling another 2,350 flights Thursday.
Southwest is struggling to recover after being overwhelmed by a winter storm that left hundreds of pilots and flight attendants stranded out of position to operate flights.
Southwest’s cancellations amounted to 58% of its schedule, slightly better than in previous days. The Dallas carrier accounted for more than 95% of all canceled flights in the United States on Thursday. The airline has declined requests to make executives available for comment and did not provide an update about operations on its website. Its main public outreach has been to post video statements by CEO Robert Jordan and its chief commercial officer.
“I do think the scale and the growth of the airline got ahead of the tools that we have,” he said. “No fault of anybody — takes investment — and we’ll get all this done.” Southwest added a page to its website specifically for stranded travelers, and it invited customers to submit receipts for unexpected expenses. The airline said it would consider reimbursing “reasonable” expenses for meals, hotel rooms and alternate transportation incurred between Dec. 24 and Jan. 2. Consumer advocates criticized the use of the word “reasonable” as too vague.
The airline has not given an estimate for how much revenue it has lost and how much extra cost it will incur – Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and some members of Congress are demanding that Southwest pay stranded travelers for hotel rooms, meals and replacement flights they booked on other airlines.
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