Southwest cancels hundreds more flights at KCI, as holiday travel meltdown snowballs

A phone notification around 4 a.m. Tuesday informed Drew Wutke that his Thursday flight from Kansas City to LaGuardia on Southwest was canceled.

Southwest, he said, runs one or two direct flights a day from Kansas City to LaGuardia, so he knew he needed to reschedule something quickly. He clicked the rebooking link he was provided, but no flights were available until January 1.

Wutke is one of thousands of customers in Kansas City and across the country being impacted by flight cancellations and delays amid holiday travel that the airline says are a result of operational issues following last week’s winter storm.

For the next few days, Southwest said it will run about one-third of scheduled flights because of the challenges.

As of around 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Southwest had canceled 81 flights, or 72% of its scheduled flights, going into or out of Kansas City International Airport, according to data on Flight Aware. The airline so far has also canceled 82 flights Wednesday and 26 flights Thursday traveling into or out of KCI, or 74% and 61% of its scheduled flights for those days, respectively.

Between Christmas Day and Thursday, the airline has canceled 312 flights going into and out of Kansas City so far, according to data from Flight Aware.

When he called Southwest to reschedule his flight, Wutke said he either got a busy signal or, if he made it through to a representative, the call cut off. A friend in a similar situation told him they waited six hours to talk with someone from Southwest.

Wutke, a pianist and music director, needed to get home for a high-paying performance on New Year’s Eve. So, he booked the cheapest flight he could find -- a more than $600 trip on Delta for Friday.

When he called Delta about his situation, Wutke said it was a different story entirely. He only waited 30 minutes and was then bumped up to a Thursday flight that had been fully booked to better accommodate his schedule. Southwest, on the other hand, hasn’t communicated if or how he can get his money back.

“I don’t know how Southwest is going to handle it,” he said. “I’m not gonna wait six hours on the phone to speak with somebody right now. I want to be home with my family. It’s all just very disappointing.”

In a statement released Monday, Southwest apologized for challenges impacting customers and employees. The airline said it is working to fix the issue by repositioning crew members and fleets.

“We were fully staffed and prepared for the approaching holiday weekend when the severe weather swept across the continent, where Southwest is the largest carrier in 23 of the top 25 travel markets in the U.S.,” the airline wrote. “These operational conditions forced daily changes to our flight schedule at a volume and magnitude that still has the tools our teams use to recover the airline operating at capacity.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced Monday night that it would investigate the cancellations and whether or not Southwest acted in line with its customer service policy.

“USDOT is concerned by Southwest’s unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays & reports of lack of prompt customer service,” the department tweeted. “The Department will examine whether cancellations were controllable and if Southwest is complying with its customer service plan.”

Michael Schwab, who brought his wife and kids from Houston to visit family in the Kansas City area, learned early Tuesday that his returning trip Wednesday afternoon was canceled with no rebooking options until the New Year.

To get home, Schwab considered renting a car and making the 13-hour trek to Houston, but no rental cars were available at any of the companies he called. In the meantime, he and his family will stay in Kansas City and continue looking for the fastest way home.

While he can stay with family, Schwab said not everyone will be as lucky, and Southwest hasn’t been clear about whether or not expenses like food and hotels will be covered.

“It harms a lot of families, and there are people who are stuck in cities where they need to get home,” Schwab said. “There are people in situations where they can’t foot the bill for staying in hotels and everything. There’s no clarity about refunds from Southwest.”

On an FAQ page about the disruptions, Southwest said customers impacted by delays and cancellations can email the airline with receipts showing expenses incurred on hotels, meals and alternate transportation between Dec. 24 and Jan. 2. Southwest said it will honor “reasonable requests for reimbursement.”

Wutke said he understands that airlines can’t control the weather, but he said the lack of communication and issues he experienced with Southwest compared with its competitors means he likely won’t be traveling on the airline again.

“You can control how you communicate and how you help your customers, and you can control the experience we have as far as a timely manner of being able to prepare us for what our options are,” he said. “But it’s very clear that Southwest cannot handle that.”