NEW ORLEANS — Delayed, canceled, and a bit frustrated.
“I wasn’t even paying attention to it, of course, until it was time for my flight,” Southwest Airlines passenger Karen Zachary said.
Zachary and her husband were two of many stranded Southwest Airlines customers trying to get home Tuesday morning from New Orleans.
“My husband is in the line for rebooking and the line has moved this much,” Zachary said.
Their flight to Florida was one of the thousands canceled across the country. Cancelations are from all airlines, but according to FlightAware, Southwest had more than 2,902 cancelations Monday, which is about 71% of its scheduled flights for that day. That’s ten times as many as any other major airline.
“We’ve had sufficient staffing the entire time to address and operate our flight schedule. It’s just once the storm dropped in the middle of it, that just sent the system reeling,” Southwest Airlines spokesperson Jay McVay said.
Southwest Airlines says the weather also prevents flight crews from being where they need to be, leading to more cancelations. The company is apologizing to customers.
"Right now, I’m calm because there’s nothing I can do,” Southwest Airlines passenger Cynthia Adams said.
To customers like Adams, the damage is done. She now plans to catch a ride with family to Jacksonville, FL and then rent a car to continue the drive home to West Palm Beach.
“I take [Southwest] everywhere I go but they don’t have to worry about Cynthia Adams anymore,” Adams said.
“Things are going horribly, horribly wrong” travel expert Kyle Potter said.
Potter, with Thrifty Traveler, says anyone with a canceled Southwest flight should book a backup flight with a different airline.
“The federal government guarantees you the right to cancel your entire trip and get your money back if the airline cancels your flight,” Potter said.
For folks trying to get to New Orleans, there are problems as well.
Some incoming flights are getting canceled, right before a busy tourism weekend in the city with New Year’s Eve and the Sugar Bowl.
“We think that the airlines can get this figured out and get people here,” New Orleans & Company representative Kelly Schulz said.
Schulz says downtown and French Quarter hotels report a 90 percent occupancy for Saturday night.
“We’re confident that people will be able to get here and keep their plans. A lot of the Sugar Bowl folks have already arrived in the city,” Schulz said.
For folks not so lucky to already be where they should be, it’s a test of patience.
“I think this one just couldn’t be helped. With the amount of people and the weather, it just is what it is,” Zachary said.
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