More flights are canceled from winter storm. How is that affecting airports in Florida?
An epic breakdown in air travel brought on by a prolonged winter storm continued Tuesday with the cancellation or delay of thousands of flights around the United States and more than 200 in Florida.
Although South Florida was spared the worst of the storm, its airports and passengers felt the pain, frustration and inconvenience of a massive number of flight disruptions.
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport reported nearly 90 flights scrapped, as of late afternoon. Miami International was reporting 35 cancellations, with 31 of those by Southwest Airlines. For each of the previous four days, Miami reported between 55 and 68 cancellations a day, starting Dec. 23.
Tampa International Airport, meanwhile, reported more than 100 cancellations on Tuesday, most of them by Southwest Airlines.
Flight Aware, an online tracking service, said the airport disruptions were part of a total of 10,117 delays within, into or out of the United States, and 4,631 cancellations.
Southwest Airlines accounted for the largest number of cancellations around the country, and on Tuesday had canceled more than 2,500, or 63% of its flights, FlightAware said.
The budget airline issued an apology to its customers and staff.
“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 said in a statement.
“Our heartfelt apologies for this are just beginning,” Southwest said. “With no concern higher than ultimate safety, the people of Southwest share a goal to take care of each and every customer. We recognize falling short and sincerely apologize...We’ll work to make things right for those we’ve let down, including our employees.”
“Flight impacts ... are due to several factors including bad weather over parts of the U.S., airline or federal airspace operational decisions, among other issues,” Arlene Satchell, public information officer for Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International, said in an email.
She referred questions on reported baggage handling issues to the respective airlines. Emily Nipps, director of communications at Tampa International, also referred questions about baggage handling problems to the respective airlines.
“On Monday, we had 135 cancellations of flights in/out of Tampa — more than 75% of them were for Southwest (100 of the 135 cancellations). This equated to 72% of their entire flight schedule in/out of Tampa,” Nipps said.
“Today [Tuesday], we have 112 cancellations, over 90% belonging to Southwest. Nearly 70% of their flight schedule in/out of Tampa today is canceled,” she said.
“Looking ahead to tomorrow [Wednesday], we have 106 cancellations, 99% of them belonging to Southwest, equating to 75% of their originally planned flight schedule in/out of Tampa,” Nipps said.
Southwest said Tuesday afternoon that it did not have details to share on baggage handling problems at Tampa or Fort Lauderdale, but noted that it planned to “operate a reduced schedule by flying roughly one third of our schedule for the next several days.”
Customers can contact Southwest to rebook or request a refund: Southwest.com/traveldisruption.
“Additionally, our Travel Advisory is still in effect to offer customers maximum flexibility with rebooking,” Southwest said in an email.
Southwest’s problems stem from aggressive scheduling — shorter flights with tighter turnaround times — and by under-investing in its operations, Kathleen Bangs, a FlightAware spokesperson, told CNN.
Among originating U.S. airports with the most flights canceled on Tuesday were Denver International, Chicago Midway, Harry Reid Las Vegas, Baltimore/Washington, Dallas Love Field and Nashville International. All had more than 100 cancellations, according to Flight Aware.
This story was originally published December 27, 2022 at 12:48 PM.
