Southwest Airlines has canceled hundreds of flights at Los Angeles International Airport and the Southern California region through Saturday, following days of widespread cancellations for the budget carrier at airports nationwide.
As of Monday evening, based on Southwest’s website, most flights departing out of major airports in Southern California were “unavailable” through Saturday, including flights out of LAX, John Wayne Airport in Orange County, Hollywood Burbank Airport and Long Beach Airport.
As of 8 a.m. Tuesday, there were 122 flights canceled and 85 flights delayed at LAX, 63 flights canceled and two flights delayed at Long Beach Airport, 82 flights canceled and one flight delayed at Hollywood Burbank Airport, 50 flights canceled and eight flights delayed at Ontario International Airport and 101 flights canceled and five flights delayed at John Wayne Airport.
As of 8 p.m. Monday, there were 106 Southwest Airlines flights canceled and 30 Southwest Airlines flights were delayed at LAX.
Kate Kuykendall, a spokesperson for Long Beach Airport, said that it’s important for people flying out of Long Beach to know that not all flights are canceled and that people who have pending flights should check in with the airline prior to showing up to the airport.
“It’s really important to check that status,” she said. The airport currently can operate 53 flights per day with 40 of those daily flight slots belonging to Southwest, Kuykendall said.
Tuesday there were 38 Southwest flights scheduled to depart from Long Beach but 31 were listed as canceled on the airport’s website Tuesday afternoon. Another two flights were listed as delayed, one a Southwest flight to Las Vegas and the other was an American Airlines flight to Phoenix.
While there is hope that Southwest’s operations would return to a normal volume, the airline has said that it will only fly about one-third of its scheduled flights for the next few days.
FlightAware, a website that tracks airline activity like cancellations and delays, already shows 31 outbound flights and 30 inbound flights to Long Beach have been canceled for Wednesday.
Another 13 inbound flights and 15 outbound flights are listed as canceled for Thursday, according to the website. Because Southwest Airlines has the majority of flight slots at Long Beach Airport the airport is projected to be the airport with the largest amount of cancelations in the nation on Wednesday.
The airline issued an apology to stranded holiday travelers, stating that its operational challenges stem from last week’s historic winter storm.
“With consecutive days of extreme winter weather across our network behind us, continuing challenges are impacting our customers and employees in a significant way that is unacceptable,” Southwest stated in a news release. “We are working with safety at the forefront to urgently address wide-scale disruption … And our heartfelt apologies for this are just beginning.”
On Monday alone, Southwest canceled more than 2,900 flights across the country, or about 70% of its scheduled total, according to the tracking website FlightAware. By 6 a.m. Tuesday, Southwest canceled more than 2,500 more flights, which accounted for at least 60% of its schedule.
Officials with the U.S. Department of Transportation issued a statement in response to Southwest’s cancellations, noting that the department will be looking into the situation.
“USDOT is concerned by Southwest’s unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays and reports of lack of prompt customer service,” the department tweeted. “The department will examine whether cancellations were controllable and if Southwest is complying with its customer service plan.”
Southwest Airlines said it was fully staffed late last week and prepared for the approaching Christmas weekend when severe weather swept across the continent.
“We’re working with safety at the forefront to urgently address wide-scale disruption,” airline officials stated, noting that Southwest plans to operate with a reduced schedule, flying roughly one-third of its originally scheduled flights for the next several days.
“On the other side of this, we’ll work to make things right for those we’ve let down,” the airline stated.
Impacted travelers can find more information at southwest.com/traveldisruption.
Staff writer Jason Ruiz contributed to this report.