Southwest cancels more than 700 flights, blaming weather

Flight cancellations across the country continue to cause headaches for thousands of travelers, and Southwest is topping the list of most-affected airlines for the second consecutive day.

Flight cancellations across the country continue to cause headaches for thousands of travelers, and Southwest is topping the list of most-affected airlines for the second consecutive day. But the source and scope of these disruptions are different from the meltdown the airline endured a year ago. As of Monday afternoon, the airline has canceled more than 700 flights, about 18% of its schedule, setting off alarm bells that the nightmarish travel weekend could be the start of another operational fiasco for the company. But, according to the airline, this isn’t a technology issue like the 10-day service meltdown that left more than 2 million travelers stranded during the 2022 holiday season and cost the company more than a billion dollars. The problem is the weather. A huge swath of the country has been pummeled with harsh winter conditions this weekend, and more than 140 million people are currently under wind chill alerts stretching from the Rockies to central Texas. Over 140 daily cold records could be broken Monday and Tuesday from Oregon to Mississippi, and temperatures in Memphis, Dallas and Nashville are expected to stay below freezing for at least 72 consecutive hours. Southwest said the delays had been pre-planned and communicated to customers in advance. The scheduling changes were carried out “to anticipate forecasted operating conditions across a wide swath of our route map – everything from wintry precipitation including blizzard conditions, to airfield and airspace constraints, and dangerous wind chill environments that require rotating ground crews to limit exposure,” a spokesperson told CNN in a statement. Cancellations and delays should ease up considerably on Tuesday “as the storm moves East and the cold temperatures begin to moderate,” the spokesperson added. The airline pointed to a list of operational steps that it says it took in 2023 to ensure that the level of disruption that happened in 2022 does not repeat itself, including updates to crew scheduling systems and more de-icing equipment at airports.