United States holiday travel upended as forecasters warn of ‘bomb cyclone’

Update: So, the weather event is mostly over and air travel is mostly back to normal -- with the exception of Southwest Airlines:

Southwest cancels 5,400 flights in less than 48 hours in a 'full-blown meltdown' (NPR)

Southwest canceled more than 2,900 flights Monday — at least 70% of its schedule for the day — and more than 2,500 flights Tuesday as of 9:10 a.m. ET — at least 60% of its schedule, according to flight tracker FlightAware. The disruptions add to chaos that has left people stranded at airports across the country, many of them with little idea of when they can get home or where their bags are.

The number of canceled flights for Southwest Monday was more than 10 times higher than for Delta, which had the second-most cancellations by a U.S. airline with 265 flights called off. Other airlines have also ordered large-scale cancellations in the past week.

Southwest's spokesperson officially cited the weather as the predominant issue but also added:

Other issues that have exacerbated the airline's struggle to accommodate the holiday rush include problems with "connecting flight crews to their schedules," Perry said. That issue has made it difficult for employees to access crew scheduling services and get reassignments.

An unconfirmed throwaway account on r/SouthwestAirlines claiming to be a Southwest employee is offering this explanation and warning in addition:

This shitstorm is because the crew scheduling software went belly up and it almost all has to be unraveled over the phone with crew members calling scheduling. If we had better technology which eliminated the need for phone calls, this would have been fixed by now.

If you are able to find alternative transportation to your final destination- DO IT. Another airline, bus, train, Lyft, rental car, ANYTHING. Southwest WILL NOT be able to get you to your destination anytime in the next few days.

EDIT: The above post has now been deleted. Here is another post from r/flying from a person claiming to be a former Southwest employee sharing similar details:

I have friends in CS and the hotel assignment side too. There were 2 specific problems, the software for scheduling is woefully antiquated by at least 20 years. No app/internet options, all manual entry and it has settings that you DO NOT CHANGE for fear of crashing it. Those settings create the automated flow as a crewmember is moving about their day, it doesn’t know you flew the leg DAL-MCO it just assumes it and moves your piece forward.

In the event of a disruption you call scheduling and they manually adjust you. It does work, it just works for an airline 1/3 the size of SWA.

So the storm came and it impacted ground ops so bad that many many crews were now “unaccounted” for and the system in place couldn’t keep up. Then it happened for several more days. By Xmas evening the CS department had essentially reached the inability to do anything but simple, one off assignments. And to make matters worse, the phone system was updated not too long ago and it was not working well.

I was originally scheduled on Southwest. It turns out my flight getting cancelled well in advance and my inability to reschedule it ended up being a blessing in disguise.

I've been pretty down the past couple of days, as the only time of year I regularly see my family is Christmas, and this was the first Christmas since 2019 where I was going to be able to meet up with them because COVID disrupted it for two years. When my flight got cancelled I was kind of devastated, partially for me but mostly because I knew it would be really tough on my mom. When I video chatted with the family that were able to travel for Christmas, she texted me after and told me "you looked sad", which was true. FaceTime is nice, but it's not the same as being there.

Now, though, I'm feeling better about the whole thing though, especially after seeing reddit posts from people who have been stuck in airports for days (some who still have little hope for any resolution in the coming days) and people who won't be getting their checked bags back for well over a month. I'm very glad I knew about my cancellation early and have been at least enable to enjoy the break from work, rather than being in an uncertain and uncomfortable holding pattern for days.

If anyone here on Tildes is stuck in this travel nightmare, my heart goes out to you.