Southwest Airlines disruption leaves customers stranded, call centers swamped- QHN

(CNN) — Last week’s winter weather travel mess is lingering like a hangover into this week — and the headaches are migraine-proportioned for Southwest Airlines and its frustrated passengers on Monday.

But Southwest accounts for a whopping share of those.

The Dallas-based airline has canceled more than half of its flights — more than 2,600 total flights — as 3 p.m. Monday, according to FlightAware. It canceled around 300 flights in the span of a half hour Monday afternoon.

On social media, customers are complaining loudly about long lines to speak with representatives, problems with lost bags and excessive wait times or busy signals on the airline’s customer service telephone lines.

‘Disruptions across our network’

Customers encountered long lines at Southwest counters on Monday at Raleigh-Durham International Airport.

WRAL

In a statement to CNN, Southwest Airlines said it is “experiencing disruptions across our network as a result of (the winter storm’s) lingering effects on the totality of our operation.”

Some of the airports seeing the biggest issue are Denver, Las Vegas, Chicago Midway, Baltimore/Washington, and Dallas Love Field where Southwest operates.

Calls to Southwest’s customer service attempted Monday afternoon by CNN did not go through, so customers couldn’t even get in the queue to speak to a representative. Southwest told CNN it is “fully staffed to answer calls.”

The airline also says, “those whose flights have been canceled may request a full refund or receive a flight credit, which does not expire.”

Meanwhile, in hard-hit western New York, Buffalo International Airport said in its most recent tweet that it plans to resume passenger flights at 11 a.m. ET Tuesday.

The temperature at the airport was 19 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 7 Celsius) around 3 p.m. ET, with light snow falling on top of the huge amounts the area has already seen.

What can stranded passengers do?

“The main hotline for US airlines will be clogged with other passengers getting rebooked. To get through to an agent quickly, call any one of the airline’s dozens of international offices” Scott Keyes said.

“Agents can handle your reservation just like US-based ones can, but there’s virtually no wait to get through.”

Bad road conditions

Road travel remained treacherous in parts of the US because of extreme wintry conditions.

“The City of Buffalo is impassable in most areas, while mains may have a lane open for emergency traffic or two, most secondaries as well as side streets have not been touched yet,” Poloncarz said.

He adding that the cleared main roads are primarily for the use of life-saving measures to open up areas around hospitals and nursing homes.

A rough past week

A winter storm that swept across the US was ill-timed for travelers who had started pushing Christmas week flying numbers back toward pre-pandemic levels.

On Christmas Day, there were 3,178 flights canceled and 6,870 flight delayed, according to FlightAware.

On Christmas Eve, there were a total of 3,487 flights canceled, according to FlightAware.

Friday was the worst day of this streak with 5,934 cancellations, while Thursday saw almost 2,700 cancellations.

This megablast of winter weather across the eastern two-thirds of the nation is forecast to slowly moderate this week.

More developments to come on this breaking news story.

CNN’s Ross Levitt, Chris Boyette and Artemis Moshtaghian contributed to this story.