Southwest Airlines Flight Cancellation Chaos - DOT Steps In

Southwest Airlines Co LUV expects the disturbance in flight operations due to the winter blizzard to continue for a few more days.

Strong winds that intensified into a cyclone played havoc with people’s traveling plans across the U.S. during the Christmas holidays.

The storm caused power interruptions and canceled thousands of flights.

As a result, major airports canceled thousands of flights as the storm intensified, reported Bloomberg.

Southwest canceled about 3,000 flights on Monday, with hundreds of other flights running behind schedule.

More than 80% of its scheduled flights were affected as the storm upended operational plans.

The carrier was responsible for almost three-fourths of cancellations in the U.S., leading to the Department of Transportation’s concern about its customer service.

The U.S. Department of Transportation said it was concerned by Southwest’s “unacceptable” rate of cancellations and delays.

“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,” the airline said.

Southwest canceled 42% of its flights on Sunday and 67% on Monday compared to 21% of Delta Airlines Inc’s DAL flights getting delayed on Sunday and an 8% drop on Monday.

“In all likelihood, we’ll have another tough day tomorrow as we work our way out of this,” said CEO Bob Jordan.

The airline will take the initiative to accommodate customers in other airlines by covering their travel costs and also refunding those who opt out of the travel.

While other air carriers use the hub-and-spoke system to convey passengers to large airports, Southwest follows point-to-point service, with Boeing 737s making all the trips.

Price Action: LUV shares are trading lower by 3.94% at $34.67 in premarket on the last check Tuesday.