Passengers/Photo courtesy of The Arizona Republic
Southwest Airlines canceled over 1,000 flights nationwide and left passengers stranded due to weather and air traffic control concerns.
Over the weekend, reports swirled of travelers being left to make other plans and fend for themselves in various airports as their flights were canceled without any promise of reassignment to another flight.
Southwest connected with social media to keep passengers apprised of the situation and explain the problems causing the need to cancel the flights.
While Southwest blamed some of the cancelations on air traffic control problems, the Federal Aviation Administration said there were no ATC traffic shortages. Still, the weather had been a problem in getting planes off of the runway.
Although airlines nationwide have had some cancelations, Southwest has led the group. Some travelers were made aware of cancelations at inconvenient times, and by the time they arrived at the airport, the lines at ticket counters had several hour-long wait times.
By Monday, the number of cancelations had
swelled to 2,000.Southwest said a change in flight frequency caused this weekend’s problems and that they are working to straighten everything out and get stranded passengers to their destinations.