More travelers face cancellations at RDU as Southwest operates on reduced flights

Thousands of travelers flying Southwest Airlines through Raleigh-Durham International Airport are stuck after a fourth day of cancellations and delays.

But the airline assured travelers that it would “return to normal operations with minimal operations” on Friday, according to a statement from the company.

As of Thursday afternoon, RDU airport reported 31 flight cancellations and 15 delays, mostly from Southwest, going to cities in Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, Texas, Missouri, Michigan, Illinois, New York and Colorado, according to the Flight Aware tracking site.

According to the Flight Aware tracker, 2,474 flights were canceled Thursday traveling out, within or into the United States today. Southwest made up 2,362 of those cancellations. The numbers are similar to Wednesday, when there were 2,879 United States flights canceled with Southwest making up 2,509 of them.

The number of canceled flights through RDU has decreased from Tuesday, when nearly 50 Southwest flights were either canceled or delayed, The News & Observer reported.

“We are encouraged by the progress we’ve made to realign crew, their schedules and our fleet,” the company said in a statement Thursday. “With another holiday weekend full of important connections for our valued customers and employees, we are eager to return to a state of normalcy.”

Southwest Airlines told travelers that the flights, crews and airlines were impacted due to consecutive days of extreme weather across their network. Across the United States through the Christmas weekend, temperatures dipped to record low temperatures followed by snow and blizzards in some parts of the country.

Since the winter storm arrived on Dec. 22, Southwest has canceled more than 15,700 flights.

The airline’s CEO, Bob Jordan, said in a video Tuesday that Southwest, one of the largest carriers in the country, reduced the number of flights because of their large airplanes and flight crews that were “out of position In dozens of locations.”

Jordan apologized to travelers and crew members affected by the cancellations.

“Our plan for the next few days is to fly a reduced schedule and reposition our people and planes,” he said. The schedule may not be back to normal until after the new year, according to the airline.

Travelers are able to get refunds and can modify their flight plans if they are flying Southwest through Jan. 2.

Airline accountability

While canceled flights due to bad weather aren’t unusual, Pete Buttigieg, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation, told CNN that Southwest’s situation was “unacceptable.”

“We saw, for example, a number of airlines that had cancellations, they weren’t taking good care of their passengers,” he said in an interview with CNN. “Through enforcement actions, we’ve been able to help get hundreds of thousands of passengers their money back to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Jordan said he was communicating with Buttigieg on the best way to ensure customers get to their destinations safely and get their luggage.

On Monday, the department said in a tweet it would be investigating whether the delays and cancellations were controllable.

Buttigieg added that the department has measures enforcement powers, such as fines, to hold airlines accountable for promises they’ve made to customers, if the agency finds an airline could have prevented the delays.

In addition to getting cash refunds, travelers can also get hotel accommodations and vouchers for restaurants when the airline is at fault for a disturbance In travel.

“What I talked about with the Southwest CEO is that a passenger should have to request that, they need to be proactively offering that. He pledged they would,” Buttigieg told CNN.

Those traveling on Southwest Airlines this weekend through RDU can check their flight’s status online at rdu.com or through Southwest.com.

Southwest also set up a website at southwest.com/traveldisruption for travelers to submit requests for refunds and reimbursements for meals, hotels and transportation. Travelers can also use the site to track down their baggage.