Southwest cancels more flights at Miami, Fort Lauderdale airports

MIAMI – Cancelations and lengthy strains are inflicting flight frustrations for vacationers at South Florida’s airports.

As of 6 a.m., 29 flights had been canceled and 21 delayed at Miami Worldwide Airport, in line with FlightAware. At Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Worldwide, 6 flights have been delayed and 79 flights have been canceled, of these canceled 78 have been for Southwest Airways.

The airline has scrubbed greater than 2,300 flights nationwide set for Thursday because it tries to revive order to its mangled schedule. That is an enormous share of all scrapped U.S. flights for the day as famous by FlightAware, and 58% of Southwest’s Thursday schedule.

Southwest has canceled greater than 15,000 flights over the previous week, in line with knowledge posted by FlightAware.

The air service has blamed the large winter storm final week for placing its crews out of place and is now working a diminished flight schedule in hopes of getting again on monitor by the brand new yr.

The corporate issued one other apology Wednesday, however it may nonetheless take days earlier than the scenario is again to regular.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has criticized airways for earlier disruptions, mentioned his company would look at the causes of Southwest’s widespread cancellations and whether or not the airline was assembly its authorized obligations to stranded prospects.

“Whereas all of us perceive that you could’t management the climate, this has clearly crossed the road from what’s an uncontrollable climate scenario to one thing that’s the airline’s direct duty,” Buttigieg informed “NBC Nightly Information.” He mentioned Southwest ought to at the least pay money refunds for canceled flights and canopy stranded passengers’ resort and meal prices.

In Congress, the Senate Commerce Committee additionally promised an investigation. Two Senate Democrats referred to as on Southwest to offer “vital” compensation for stranded vacationers, saying that the airline has the cash as a result of it plans to pay $428 million in dividends subsequent month.

A number of main airways — together with American, Delta, and United mentioned they’re capping fares in choose cities to assist stranded prospects get dwelling.