Southwest Airlines FLIGHTmare Christmas continues today, Tuesday, December 27, as the airline struggles to right its operations after the pre Christmas winter storm created chaos at airports across the country.
While other airlines are more or less back to normal after a winter storm led to widespread flight cancellations over the Christmas holiday, Southwest Airlines is still in the middle of a meltdown.
The latest from here in Orlando is that as Southwest have cancelled thousands of flights across the country, hundreds of stranded passengers at Orlando International Airport have been informed that Southwest is unable to reschedule cancelled flights until New Year's Eve at the earliest
As we reported earlier this morning, Southwest cancelled over 70% of flights across the country yesterday, including the majority of flights in and out of Orlando International Airport.
Last night passengers at MCO resorted to sleeping on the floor of the airport after flight cancellations left them stranded, and unable to secure rooms in already full hotels around the airport.
Today, Tuesday, the airline has already cancelled over 60% of flights nationwide, with passengers in Orlando getting very frustrated.
Long lines formed at Southwest's check in desks since early morning with angry passengers who have been waiting in line for hours, complaining that they were not informed of delays and cancelations until arriving at the airport, and then were offered little in the way of help, or even information on when they will get out of Orlando.
Acording to Southwest “We anticipate additional changes with an already reduced level of flights as we approach the coming New Year holiday travel period. And we’re working to reach (out) to customers whose travel plans will change with specific information and their available options.”
In a travel advisory, Southwest Airlines said that it would put a system-wide waiver into place for passengers who experienced a “disruption in service” through January 2.
