In a "full-blown crisis," Southwest cancels 5,400 flights in less than 48 hours.

 Southwest Airlines has had the most trouble navigating the Christmas holiday rush as a result of the record winter storm that has complicated holiday travel and brought dangerous weather to a significant portion of the United States.

According to flight tracker FlightAware, Southwest cancelled more than 2,900 flights on Monday—at least 70% of its daily program—and more than 2,500 flights on Tuesday—at least 60% of its schedule. The delays worsen the confusion that has left travellers trapped at airports around the nation, many of whom have no idea how long it will be before they can return home or find their luggage.

Southwest had more than ten times as many cancelled flights on Monday as Delta, which had 265 cancelled flights, the second-most cancellations of any U.S. carrier. In the previous week, large-scale cancellations were also requested by other airlines.

Southwest's Chris Perry, a spokeswoman for the company, told NPR that the residual impacts of the winter storm are to blame for the airline's delays, and that the company wants to "stabilise and improve its business" with better weather.

Other challenges with "connecting flight crews to their schedules," Perry added, have made it more difficult for the airline to handle the holiday surge. Employees have found it challenging to use crew scheduling systems and request reassignments as a result of this problem.

Coordinating staffing and scheduling, especially following weather delays, is a very difficult undertaking for an airline with a network as extensive as Southwest's, according to Kyle Potter, executive editor of Thrifty Traveler.

However, with many places experiencing clear skies on Monday, it would seem that the airline had few plainly understandable reasons to cancel so many flights. It is "full-blown meltdown," according to Potter.

As terrible as it gets for an airline, according to Potter. "Over the past year or so, we've seen this time and time again, when airlines really just struggle, especially after a storm, but the skies are generally clear across the nation."

As it continues to recover its operations, the airline stated in a statement on Monday that it will fly around one-third of its scheduled flights over the next days.

The cancellations, delays, and customer service response were deemed "unacceptable" by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

According to a statement from USDOT, "The Department will review whether cancellations were controllable and if Southwest is complying with its customer service plan."

Vacationers have their plans derailed

Before the Christmas holiday, everything started to fall apart for Southwest. Potter asserted that such widespread cancellations on Monday "is a clear, unambiguous indicator something has gone dreadfully wrong."

Passengers are documenting the crowded baggage claim areas and long waits at reservation counters in pictures and videos from Houston, Texas, and Tampa, Florida, to Cleveland, Ohio, and Denver, Colorado. According to Colorado Public Radio, hold times on the customer service phone line at Southwest frequently exceeded two hours and occasionally even reached four hours.

Joshua Caudle, a Southwest passenger who said he wasn't sure when they would be able to leave Denver, said on Denver7 News, "I'm okay with these travel situations and fly on by myself when it's just me, but when my one-year-old has to suffer through it because of ineptitude and mismanagement, that becomes personal." "I'm never doing this with that firm again," she declared.

After numerous delays and cancellations to flights leaving the Kansas City International Airport, a Southwest passenger who claims she was trying to travel from Missouri to Denver claimed she missed celebrating Christmas with her family. She tweeted that even though she was grounded, her stuff was nonetheless delivered to Denver.

Renewing demand has hurt airlines.

After suffering losses of tens of billions of dollars during the worst months of the pandemic, airlines have been battling to recover. Airlines have struggled with staffing issues as they attempt to handle the resurgence of air travel among Americans. And Southwest is not the only airline that has struggled to keep up with demand.

This summer, thousands of Delta pilots protested at busy airports, demanding more compensation and raising issues regarding staffing as passengers experienced flight cancellations amid the Fourth of July holiday rush. After contract negotiations were put on hold last month, Delta pilots decided to authorise a strike.

As traffic plummeted off a cliff at the beginning of the epidemic, "every airline in the country, Southwest included, got incredibly small, and they have struggled as travel has rebounded to build back up to 100% and they're still not there," Potter said.