Southwest Airlines found itself dealing with another year of flight delays and disruptions, despite having mostly clear skies over the Christmas holidays.
Southwest experienced 1,027 flight disruptions on Monday, which amounted to a total of 110 cancellations (2%) and 917 delays (21%), according to data from FlightAware. For comparison’s sake, United Airlines had only six cancellations and 304 delays (12%) during the same period.
While Southwest’s holiday performance was a step up from the year prior, the airline was unable to escape weather-related issues.
Much of the blame for Monday’s flight disruptions stemmed from dense fog in Chicago over the weekend, said a Southwest spokesperson, per NBC 5 DFW. While some additional cancellations on Monday were necessary due to the weather, the Dallas-based airline expected a full recovery by Tuesday.
FlightAware, however, shows that Southwest had four cancellations and 1,567 delays, or about 34% of total flights on Tuesday.
Despite experiencing flight disruptions on Christmas day, operations at Southwest have been smooth compared to the same point last year. As reported by The Dallas Express, Southwest experienced a winter storm meltdown in 2022 that resulted in thousands of flight cancellations and widespread travel disruptions.
Earlier this month, Southwest agreed to a $140 million settlement with the Department of Transportation (DOT) regarding its 2022 operational meltdown.
DOT found Southwest Airlines violated federal regulations by “failing to provide prompt flight status notifications to over one million passengers regarding a cancellation, diversion, or delay of 30 minutes or more despite being aware of the flight status change for more than 30 minutes.”
More than 11,000 Southwest Airlines pilots are set to vote in January on a tentative agreement with the company that will result in increased compensation and retirement benefits if approved.
