5 things to know about your canceled Southwest flight

西南航空公司正遭受一个假期宿醉，这引起了从巴尔的摩到圣地亚哥的数千名旅行者的头痛。

在这里，我们认为Covid-19或流感可能会取消圣诞节和新年的庆祝活动，但事实证明，航空公司已经开了风。

According to FlightAware, over 2,900 flights into, within or from the United States have been canceled today. Of those flights, Southwest is responsible for some 2,500 cancellations. And Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport has the fourth highest number of canceled flights. Only Las Vegas, Denver and Chicago have more.

Good grief.

Here are five things you need to know if you’re stuck at BWI or another airport with hopes of getting home before 2023.

1. Blame the weather but there’s plenty of blame to go around

The arctic cold that wrapped the lower-48 in its icy embrace for several days is certainly a root cause of the current situation. But also worth a look are the ongoing staffing shortages faced by several airlines due to early retirements, sickness and more. Industry insiders have pointed to particularly dire issues for Southwest, including a recent lack of ramp workers that led the airline to declare anoperational emergency in Denverearlier this month.

2.要立即回家，请找到另一种方法

If you need to get home within the next few days or so, start lining up alternative travel options. Rental cars seem the most obvious, but several rental agencies have experienced shortages on their lots this year. Fleets are depleted and may be extremely difficult to book especially at the airport locations. Look for offsite rental agencies that you can Uber to from the airport. For example, Enterprise had no bookings available for tomorrow at BWI, however their Silver Spring location had availability. Booking a flight on a different airline is another option for those stuck at the airport but Southwest doesn’t partner with any other airlines so travelers will be on their own in making those arrangements. At BWI, only Southwest and Spirit airlines had cancellations as of Tuesday afternoon. The remaining airlines appeared to be operating normally.

3. Southwest may reimburse for hotels and replacement flights

If you’re lucky enough to get a flight on another airline there’s a good chance Southwest will reimburse your funds or at least为您取消的航班发出退款。大多数航空公司已与美国交通部达成协议，还为因天气以外的活动而推迟三个小时的乘客提供了酒店和食品费用，例如工作人员召集病假。所以有摩擦。如果西南航空辩称延误和取消主要是由于寒冷的天气，则乘客将面临更困难的途径，以支付一些费用。In a statement Monday, the airline said:“We were fully staffed and prepared for the approaching holiday weekend when the severe weather swept across the continent…” leaving little doubt as to its position. However in a message to employees, Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan appeared to acknowledge at least some difficulty in putting together crews to work the holiday flights.

4. The Dept. of Transportationis investigating

No matter what Southwest contends, the government has already said it will investigate what happened. The Department of Transportation tweeted Monday that it would look into the airline’s holiday meltdown. The DOT specifically noted that it had concerns that Southwest was not “complying with itscustomer service plan。”该计划要求航空公司及时通知取消航班，处理快速退款并安排行李的交付。（我们不会讨论行李，除了说可以节省您为总统日打包的那些圣诞节礼物。）

5. Don’t go to the airport until you confirm your flight

截至周二下午，西南航空已取消了其时间表的70％。这意味着今天有一个幸运的人正在登机。考虑到这一点，在前往机场之前检查航班状态仍然很重要。有旅行者的报告称，西南没有在线更新其行程，也没有向被取消航班预订的乘客发送文本通知。您可以检查BWI’s flight dashboard here。