Southwest Airlines CEO Says More Cancellations Ahead as Airline Tries to Recover

Southwest Airlines Co. canceled more than two-thirds of its flights Monday and plans to slash its schedules Tuesday and Wednesday, in a meltdown that stranded thousands of customers and that worsened while other airlines began to recover from the holiday winter storm.

“We had a tough day today. In all likelihood we’ll have another tough day tomorrow as we work our way out of this,” Chief Executive Bob Jordan said in an interview Monday evening. “This is the largest-scale event that I’ve ever seen.” 

Southwest plans to operate just over one-third of its typical schedule in the coming days to give itself leeway for crews to get into the right positions, he said, adding that the reduced schedule could be extended.

A Southwest spokeswoman confirmed that the airline’s current plan is to keep its announced flight cuts in place through Thursday. The airline was operating its reduced schedule Tuesday, with about 62% of its flights canceled, according to FlightAware.

Southwest’s more than 2,800 scrapped flights Monday, the highest of any major U.S. airline, came as the Dallas-based airline proved unable to stabilize its operations amid the past week’s storm. Between Thursday and Monday, the airline canceled about 8,000 flights, FlightAware data showed.