With airline staff at a breaking point, passengers can expect more headaches to come

The problems at Southwest Airlines run deeper than the operational meltdown that caused more than 2,000 flight cancellations in recent days. And they'll continue well after the airline is back on schedule.

Although this weekend's problems were mainly limited to Southwest, it is by no means the only airline struggling to restore staff and flights that were trimmed during the pandemic. Fixing these problems will be expensive and time-consuming — and are likely to cause further pain for passengers returning to the skies.

Southwest said a number of issues caused the weekend cancellations, including bad weather and a brief problem at the Air Traffic Control center in Jacksonville, Florida. But those hiccups caused only minimal disruptions at other airlines, and Southwest admitted to its employees Monday that things cascaded out of control over the weekend because the airline doesn't have adequate staffing.