Unclaimed luggage piles up at airports following Southwest cancellations

A winter storm led Southwest Airlines to cancel thousands of flights over the holiday season at the last minute. And a good chunk of the hundreds of thousands of stranded or delayed passengers still have no idea where their luggage is.

Airlines were already bracing for a chaotic travel season expected to generate a turnout similar to what airports experienced before the pandemic. Dangerous winter storms across the country only exacerbated this, leading every major airline to cancel or delay flights as the weather raged on.