Southwest Airlines pledges to resume normal operations effective today, Friday, December 30, 2022, according to this official press release from the airline — although minimum disruptions are anticipated for this weekend.
Will Southwest Airlines Resume Normal Operations Today?
The statement from the press release is as follows, in its entirety:
Dec 30, 2022
Southwest Airlines is operating our normal schedule on Friday, Dec. 30. We appreciate the dedicated work of the Southwest Team to restore our schedule, and we anticipate minimal disruptions for the weekend.
Once again, we value the continued patience and support of our valued Customers, and we apologize for the inconveniences of the past week. If needed, we offer several methods for Customers to seek support from us:
Customers affected through the operational disruption can find additional assistance at: https://www.southwest.com/traveldisruption/.
Those specifically needing assistance reuniting with baggage can find information here: https://www.southwest.com/baginfo/
We look forward to the opportunity to address any needs of our Customers over the coming days as we strive to return to our previous level of Southwest Hospitality and reliability.
The operations of Southwest Airlines has been slowly improving: at least 43 more flights which are operated by Southwest Airlines were already canceled for today, Friday, December 30, 2022 — which is approximately one percent of the entire flight schedule of the airline — and a minimum of 678 additional flights were delayed.
- 2,362 flights were canceled and 313 more flights were delayed with Southwest Airlines on Thursday, December 29, 2022
- 2,510 flights were canceled and 428 more flights were delayed with Southwest Airlines on Wednesday, December 28, 2022
- 2,694 flights were canceled and 1,053 more flights were delayed with Southwest Airlines on Tuesday, December 27, 2022
- 2,909 flights were canceled and 777 more flights were delayed with Southwest Airlines on Monday, December 26, 2022
Although other airlines that have experienced their share of irregular operations due to the weather, Southwest Airlines was significantly worse than any of them.
Among the travel alerts which were listed in this article here at The Gate pertaining to the recent spate of historic winter weather this past week was one from Southwest Airlines that was never posted before at The Gate in its history of 16.5 years:
Southwest Airlines has issued travel alerts for all airports which the airline serves throughout its system through Tuesday, December 27, 2022; and Tuesday, January 10, 2023 is the last day on which tickets must be reissued and rebooked travel must begin.
That was a key indicator that more was wrong with the operations of the airline than just weather.
The airline has been slowly stabilizing and improving its operation as more favorable weather conditions have been arriving this week. In the meantime, travel advisories are currently in effect systemwide for:
- Irregular Operations through Monday, January 2, 2023; and Monday, January 16, 2023 is the last day on which tickets must be reissued and rebooked travel must begin.
- High Call Volumes and Busy Signals — Due to the very high demand from the winter weather, hold times are currently averaging greater than two hours and have been as high as four hours.
Southwest Airlines is the fourth largest airline in the United States; but the airline actually is the largest carrier in the United States in terms of domestic flights…
…and as a result of all of those cancellations and delays, thousands of passengers and their luggage are delayed or stranded all over the United States — some of them for as many as five days — as illustrated by the torrent of content which has been posted on various channels of social media by passengers who were affected or impacted by the irregular operations:
Final Boarding Call
Despite the promises to return to normal operations, I still believe that your best bet is to avoid Southwest Airlines at this time for at least the next several days. If you are ticketed as a passenger on the airline this coming week, monitor the situation and keep yourself updated so that neither you nor your luggage get stranded unnecessarily.
All photographs ©2018 and ©2022 by Brian Cohen.
