Kathleen Miller was sleeping when the text from Southwest Airlines arrived at 1:18 a.m. Sunday.
Her 7:30 a.m. flight from Phoenix to Dallas was canceled.
The Pennsylvania woman didn’t see the text until she was at the airport, where Southwest representatives directed her to a snaking rebooking line next to the ticker counters.
She stood in line for 45 minutes and left with a less-than-satisfactory rebooking option: a Tuesday flight.
“Luckily we have relatives here in the city,” Miller said.
Stranded Southwest passengers across the country are struggling with a second day of mass flight cancellations by the nation’s largest domestic airline.
Kathleen Miller was sleeping when the text from Southwest Airlines arrived at 1:18 a.m. Sunday.
Her 7:30 a.m. flight from Phoenix to Dallas was canceled.
The Pennsylvania woman didn’t see the text until she was at the airport, where Southwest representatives directed her to a snaking rebooking line next to the ticker counters.
She stood in line for 45 minutes and left with a less-than-satisfactory rebooking option: a Tuesday flight.
“Luckily we have relatives here in the city,” Miller said.
Stranded Southwest passengers across the country are struggling with a second day of mass flight cancellations by the nation’s largest domestic airline.
Southwest’s Sunday cancellation are on top of 808 cancellations on Saturday, or nearly one in four flights. This during a busy travel weekend given a federal holiday on Monday.
The airline blamed the problem on air traffic control issues and weather. In a statement Saturday the airline expressed optimism its operations on Sunday would improve, not worsen.
“We experienced significant impact in the Florida airports yesterday (Friday) evening after an FAA-imposed air traffic management program was implemented due to weather and resulted in a large number of cancellations. We are working hard behind the scenes to minimize challenges and fully recover the operation as we take care of displaced crews and customers as quickly as possible. We will continue to reset our network today and hope to return to close to normal operations as we move into Sunday.”
On Sunday, the FAA responded to Southwest’s statements blaming air traffic control issues and weather — without naming the airline — and said those issues were limited to Friday afternoon.
“No FAA air traffic staffing shortages have been reported since Friday,” Steve Kulm, FAA spokesperson, said in a statement. “Flight delays and cancellations occurred for a few hours Friday afternoon due to widespread severe weather, military training, and limited staffing in one area of the Jacksonville Air Route Traffic Control Center.”
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