Southwest Airlines To Fly 1/3 Of Schedule For Next Several Days

Southwest Airlines said they will fly roughly one-third of its schedule over the next several days as the carrier continues to cancel thousands of flights across the country, including dozens at Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City.

On Wednesday, Southwest canceled 2,509 flights - about 61 percent of its schedule - accounting for the vast majority of cancellations across the U.S., according to FlightAware. 

The day before, Southwest canceled 2,694 flights, 64 percent of its schedule.

At Will Rogers World Airport on Wednesday, Southwest had 30 cancellations. The only other carrier that had cancellations at the airport was SkyWest, with two.

In a video statement, Southwest CEO Bob Jordan apologized for the thousands upon thousands of cancellations that have happened since last week's severe winter storms.

"Here's why this giant puzzle is taking us several days to solve," Jordan said in the video. "Southwest is the largest carrier in the country, not only because of our value and our values, but because we build our flight schedule around communities, not hubs. So, we're the largest airline in 23 of the top 25 travel markets in the U.S."

"Cities where large numbers of scheduled flights simultaneously froze as record bitter cold brought challenges for all airlines," Jordan continued. "Our network is highly complex and the operation of the airline counts on all the pieces, especially aircraft and crews remaining in motion to where they're planned to go. With our large fleet of airplanes and flight crews out of position in dozens of locations, and after days of trying to operate as much of our full schedule across the busy holiday weekend, we reached a decision point to significantly reduce our flying to catch up."

Jordan said in the video that he's optimistic Southwest will be back on track before next week.

The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA), which represents 10,000 Southwest pilots, released a statement on Wednesday, saying the carrier's "operational collapse being felt by passengers and crews over this holiday was not a surprise to anyone but the leadership of Southwest Airlines."

"The holiday meltdown has been blamed on weather that had been forecast five days prior, but this problem began many years ago when the complexity of our network outgrew its ability to withstand meteorological and technological disruptions," the union said. "SWAPA subject matter experts have repeatedly presented years of data, countless proposals that make Southwest pilots more efficient and resilient."

SWAPA said it's calling for investments in infrastructure, such as crew scheduling software and communication tools.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg spoke with Jordan on Tuesday, calling the situation a meltdown.

"This seems to be due to situations and systems that really go beyond the weather event. We all get that. There's only so much you can do about the weather." said Buttigieg."But we also clearly see a system issue there that is their responsibility as an airline to manage and that we're going to be looking into to ensure that every federal standard is met, because what we're seeing right now from the system and the flights themselves to the inability to reach anybody on a customer service phone line is just completely unacceptable."

News 9 reached out to Southwest for an interview on Wednesday. The carrier said due to the high volume of media requests, no one was available. But Southwest did say it has a site where customers can rebook or request refunds.

Southwest also said teams are working on a resource to help customers reunite with lost baggage.