KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Thousands of travelers are stranded at airports across the country Monday night as Southwest Airlines tries to figure out a way to get its planes and customers back in the air.
The Associated Press reported the Flightaware site said Southwest Airlines had 1,253 cancellations -- nearly a third of its scheduled flights and about five times as many as any other major U.S. carrier.
Southwest Airlines offered a statement on its attempts to get back to business as usual.
"With consecutive days of extreme winter weather across our network behind us, continuing challenges are impacting our Customers and Employees in a significant way that is unacceptable. And our heartfelt apologies for this are just beginning. We’re working with Safety at the forefront to urgently address wide-scale disruption by rebalancing the airline and repositioning Crews and our fleet ultimately to best serve all who plan to travel with us.
The U.S. Department of Transportation sent out a statement Monday night expressing its displeasure with Southwest's problems.
"USDOT is concerned by Southwest’s unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays & reports of lack of prompt customer service," according to the statement. "The Department will examine whether cancellations were controllable and if Southwest is complying with its customer service plan."
Southwest Airlines would-be passengers packed into Terminal B Monday at KCI.
Most were anxious to leave, but the wait was proving challenging.
"I think we got here around 1:15 p.m., so its been about three hours, our flight got canceled earlier today but we hoped to get on a different one back to Austin," said Alonzo Garcia.
Garcia told KSHB 41 News the wait was not too bad, but said the delays were causing his legs to hurt.
"I didn't think all of them would be canceled," Garcia said. "I figured it would be fine since the storm came through a few days ago and we flew in the day after the storm."
He also said his wife's parents lived in the KC area.
They will be staying with them and "sticking around for some extra vacation time."
Alexis Rodriguez said she found out her flight was canceled when she went up to the Southwest kiosk at the airport and got the bad news.
"We've been in the same line for about two hours and we got here we tried to go right up to the kiosk and there was no line -- sweet and it said our flight was canceled and we got in line," Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez and her party are trying to Phoenix.
"It doesn't make us feel better that everyone is going through the same thing, that everyone is put out, but its -- what can you do right,?" she said. "Can't get mad, can't yell at people, can't complain just got to stay in line and do what you can do"
