Fog at Chicago Midway airport caused substantial cancellations on Saturday, and the airline’s operations are still disrupted today. Those Chicago cancels are having knock-on effects elsewhere in the airline’s network.
Already dozens of flights out of Chicago Midway have been cancelled for Christmas Eve Day and 57 total cancellations have been recorded prior to 8 a.m. Eastern time to start the day. This number will grow.
Southwest Airlines is leading U.S. carriers in delays and cancellations this Christmas, although nothing along the lines of last year’s disruptions where the Dallas-based carrier’s operations melted down and stranded 2 million customers. In contrast, according to FlightAware, no other major U.S. airline cancelled more than 8 flights Saturday.
According to a Southwest Airlines spokesperson,
We’re working with our Customers whose travel is impacted by fog at Chicago Midway that began Saturday night and prevented inbound aircraft from landing, forcing some diversions and subsequent flight cancelations.
With visibility remaining below required operational minimums throughout the night and expected to continue through daybreak, we’ve modified our planned start for today (Sunday) at Chicago Midway. We have all-hands on deck as our Employees are working to quickly to take care of our Customers and accommodate them on alternative flights.
Chicago Midway is our fourth busiest airport operation, with more than 200 departures a day scheduled over the holiday weekend. The fog at Midway canceled about 2% of our total flights on Saturday (177 out of 4313 ) and less than 1% of our total flights early on Sunday (53 out of 4242).
The only airline in the world cancelling more flights than Southwest Airlines right now is China Eastern.
Far too many flights on the part of all airlines . Inevitable traffic snarls . Wise people do not expect smooth sailing … wise people prepare for rough weather .
Now when I travel I expect my flight to be delayed. I consider it the norm, and prepare for it with a change of undies and disposable toothbrush w/ paste in my backpack. Regarding the holidays, if my plans are really important I book my departure date 1 day earlier than the desired arrival date.
Gary,
Fog at MDW is nothing new. While this will test their reliability, the situation is out of SWA’s control. Despite their aircraft and crews being CATIII-trained and capable, if the weather drops below the airport and runway minimums, there is not much they can do about it. You don’t dispatch an airplane to an airport it can’t land at. MDW doesn’t have a CATIII approach; only standard ILS approaches with minimums that aren’t low enough for fog this dense. This is far different than a self-inflicted issue. Save your sensationalist news for if they can’t recover from it—which it seems that they are by being proactive.
@Jordan – not sure what you are complaining about, the very first word in the piece is fog and I literally write ‘ nothing along the lines of last year’s disruptions “
Southwest’s use of secondary airports comes with shorter runways and less sophisticated equipment. And yet people are loyal to Southwest. This holiday season will be far better than last just as the past five months have been. For all airlines.
Multiple European airports have had heavy cancellations this month with better equipment than Midway
At least it is not a problem with a premium airline for premium people.
@Gary
Primarily it is the clickbait title you used, which makes it appear that it’s last year all over again. Yes, you do go on to clarify that this year the situation is minor compared to last year but the smear on Southwest is already accomplished. As others have pointed out, the root causes are Midway Airport and the weather. Come on Gary, you can do better than this.
My husband and I personally love Southwest Airlines. It’s all in the planning, if you book your flight 3 to 4 days before any holiday you will be surprised at how much smoother and enjoyable your flight will be. We flew back to New York this Thanksgiving to see our children and grandchildren, and it was great. We left the Sunday before Thanksgiving and returned on Saturday and coming home to Sarasota Florida there were 49 empty seats. Yes we took a few extra days from work, but we planned it 4 months ahead. It’s plain common sense to planned ahead when especially traveling during holiday seasons.
Gary, I wish you could cease unfairly bashing Southwest. Your bias in favor of AA and UAL with your status is showing. Not all of us fly enough to gain status. Many of us love SWA and its method of doing business. A few delays due to fog will not change that. Bret Lobner
Hope their operational recovery is better than their math:
“…about 2% of our total flights on Saturday (177 out of 4313 )…” — uh, not quite, try 4%.
“…less than 1% of our total flights early on Sunday (53 out of 4242)…” — more than 1%.
This reminds me of the long lines of pax at IAD trying to get to ORD during a snowstorm in Chicago. And complaining loudly. I recall AF Flight 90 that crashed into the Potomac due to inadequate deicing 40 years ago. There are much worse things that can happen besides a flight cancellation due to the weather.
@TimDunn People who live outside of cities (secondary airports) enjoy non stop flights that WN provides verse having to take a connection through a hub. WN allows trips to be canceled and travel credits no longer have an expiration date. Buy a BE ticket on DL, AA, and UL and you don’t get that. For people who fly economy, it is a good product for the money. There are cheaper and more expensive airlines that fly domestic routes, but for many middle class flyers who don’t have status, it hits the sweet spot.
I guess SWA is guilty of “cancel culture”???
Brian W,
I’m not arguing w/ WN’s business model.
I am just noting that they use some secondary airports which don’t have the same operational capabilities of larger airports in the same metro.
MDW’s runways are short – very short – compared to ORD’s.
And YTD as far as the DOT has calculated complaint ratios – which is not much of the year – LUV has better consider complaint ratios than AAL or UAL but behind DAL. LUV’s holiday cancellations last year spiked complaints in the first quarter of 2023 and things started to calm down before summer started when UAL’s operation melted down in June which will drive a huge spike in complaints for the summer.
Those are simply facts.
Southwest handles their irregular operations as good as or better than other airlines when they are contained, as they are this afternoon.
@Breton K Lobner – my bias in favor of AA and UA, would y’all tell executives at those airlines that? see what they say. Funny stuff!
Southwest has overtaken China Eastern in both cancellations and delays. Good job! You’re #1 in the world in something at least. I have no sympathy for anyone traveling them this year after last Christmas.
Your post is poorly focused. As everyone in the industry knows, the REAL story is the incredible RELIABILITY of US airlines these days — which hardly anyone knows about because nobody reports it. Look at today’s numbers (December 24). They’re typical. Delta has so far cancelled ONE flight SYSTEMWIDE. United has also only cancelled one flight. American has so far cancelled ZERO. This is astonishing performance over tens of thousands of flights, and is unprecedented in the history of global aviation. It’s even more impressive when you consider that the airlines have to deal with the US government (like ATC) which does not do a fantastic job of assisting. Don”t the airlines deserve some credit for this record-breaking performance?
I will say that Southwest’s performance is an outlier and definitely not a credit to their company. They’ve so far cancelled 103 flights — 2% of their schedule — and have more delays than all the other airlines combined. It isn’t horrible performance, probably about average among large airlines around the world, but is obviously far worse than their US competitors. So a fair story would note how well the US airline industry is doing, but also note that Southwest needs to do better if they want to preserve their reputation.
@chopsticks
Incredible reliability? The real story is that >20% of flights are delayed on average. With the hub system how many people end up sleeping in the airport due to this. There can be zero cancellations but still huge numbers of people left stranded. I fly quite a bit and have only had one cancellation a couple of years ago. But I’ve had many delays (4 out of my last 10 flights were delayed). None of them were for weather. It was due to things like a pilot swap (airline lied, pilot told the truth). Messed up catering, over fueled aircraft, missing paperwork and on and on. The real statistic should be how many people miss their flight daily.
far be it from me to bring objectivity and data to a conversation where people are convinced their cherrypicked reality shapes the world but Southwest was #5 in on-time on a year to date basis through Sept. (the latest for which the DOT has released data) and managed to beat both AA and UA in Jan and Feb and still beat UA in May, June and July. In fact, as hard as it is for some people to accept, there is only one airline – and you ALL know who – that Southwest has never beat in on-time in 2023 so far.
I have many friends who are flight attendants for Southwest who are beyond furious that they were stranded, on airport floors, on hold for hours with crew scheduling as to what to do. Although nothing can be done about fog and visibility, it’s been extremely pounding on the flight attendants. They are wore out and zombies at this point. Although it doesn’t nearly compare to last year and the % of system wide delays and cancelations are low, nobody is chiming in to how bad just 1 city can effect still tons of people, or all the flight attendants across the board.
@H2oman — Yes, flights sometimes arrive late. More often, they arrive early! It’s the nature of the beast. The airlines do their best to estimate the travel time, but so many factors are out of their control. That said, I’ve flown practically every month for the past 10 years (with just a few skipped months during the pandemic). The total number of times I’ve been stuck overnight during that time is zero. Obviously, if you make connections in the evening, it will eventually happen. Flying nonstop when you can is a complete no-brainer. But I would submit there is no other industry that does such a good job managing an incredibly complex and difficult business. And, yet, 99% of humans just complain about it.
@chopsticks
I would submit that when something occurs almost a 1/4 of the time the word sometimes doesn’t really apply. But we will just have to disagree. As far the customer complaints, when not a single U.S. airline is ranked in the top 20 in the world I’d say there’s a reason for the complaints.
Nobody can control the weather, especially when it comes to visibility issues that become some dangerous you can’t land. It’s just unfortunate that MDW is one of the shortest runways and you don’t want a plane going through the barrier like years ago when it killed that kid from Indiana. All in all it sucks, but safety is the most important thing. And like any big airline, it’s gonna have a ripple effect. Nothing you can do about that. Majority of people will tell you, if you can’t handle delays/cancelations, then drive. Period. There’s not 1 person that has a perfect day in this world. And that’s just reality.
Let’s see …the domestic carrier that has the most flights in the US and carries the most passengers in the US has a higher number of cancellations…in the US…when there is bad weather…in the US. Thank you for this genius piece of reporting Capt Gary Obvious
@Jeff Swartwood – their cancels are not proportional to their network. Genius.
dear 22 FA,
your perspective in the 2nd post is a little more realistic.
No one has every day as their best day.
WN built a hub/focus city at an airport with minimal margin for error and, as you note, it cost WN not that long ago for pushing their operation there.
Safety does matter most; everyone wants to get to their destination alive first and then as close to on-time… that is not exclusively a WN passenger sentiment.
WN’s linear flight schedule makes it much harder to minimize delays that the hub system which many airlines use, some of which allow cancelling a roundtrip hub to spoke set of flights until weather improves.
WN has proven that MDW and their scheduling system delivers benefits.
And let’s not also forget that UA has had the worst operational meltdown of US airlines this year (so far) with their multi-day cancellations and delays that started w/ thunderstorms at EWR – which does have the best equipment the FAA has but not near as much runway capacity as UA scheduled – which is why they had to cut flights.
Both before and after UA’s schedule cuts, on a monthly basis WN’s “hub” at MDW has better on-time than UA’s at EWR.
22 year coke machine – boo hoo. Now you know how that crap line treats their passengers. Sky waitresses aren’t entitled to special treatment.