Southwest Airlines scrubs 160 flights after resuming

Embattled air service Southwest Airways once more canceled dozens of flights after returning to a extra common flying schedule following a winter storm-related meltdown last week.

Southwest as of Monday afternoon had canceled 160, or 3%, of its flights, probably the most of any American airline, in response to monitoring web site FlightAware.  One other 422, or 10% of its scheduled flights have been delayed. The vast majority of disrupted flights have been scheduled to fly in or out of Denver Worldwide Airport.

Final week, the Dallas-based service canceled thousands of flights every day, disrupting passengers’ vacation journey plans. Though the airline blamed winter climate for the flight disruptions, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg insisted “the hundreds of cancellations by Southwest in latest days haven’t been due to the climate.”

“Different airways that skilled weather-related cancellations and delays because of the winter storm recovered comparatively shortly, not like Southwest,” he wrote in a letter to Southwest CEO Robert Jordan.

Southwest scrapped fewer than 50 flights Friday because it rebounded from one of the vital extreme aviation business breakdowns lately. However with a leap within the variety of journeys scuttled on Monday, passengers continued to gripe on Twitter. 

“@SouthwestAir are you able to present a clear replace in your baggage reuniting efforts? Over every week now with no updates. The shape is gaslighting and an especially dishonest try to appease,” one pissed off buyer tweeted. 

In a tweet responding to a buyer inquiring about lacking baggage, Southwest mentioned Monday it stays “inundated with baggage to reunite with their house owners.”

A spokesperson for Southwest mentioned the airline is “working a traditional schedule” Monday and that it is “happy” with its efficiency over the previous few days. 

The spokesperson attributed the “minimal cancelations,” out of 4,000 scheduled  flights, to “climate in a number of areas, together with fog earlier this morning in Chicago, and heavy snow in Denver.”

A fierce winter storm bringing snow, sleet and freezing rain has triggered Nationwide Climate Service warnings from the Rockies into the higher Mississippi Valley.