SOUTHERN COLORADO — For today's KOAA Survey, the News5 team would like to know how you would like the airline to handle your canceled flight.
Results:
81% A Full Refund
12% Ticket Upgrade
7% Travel Credit
We're following this survey throughout the day and into tomorrow. Tune in to News5 at 4 p.m. as we review the results!
Editor's note: This survey is not based on scientific, representative samples and is solely for KOAA purposes.
Several airlines were hit with mass cancellations over the weekend. But none were hit harder than Southwest Airlines. According to CNN, the airline canceled more than 2,000 flights Friday through Sunday. This means three out of every 10 Southwest flights were canceled over the weekend and one in three flights were disrupted in some way.
It's unclear what caused these cancellations, but Southwest blamed the grounded flights on a perfect storm of issues that included bad weather across the country, air traffic control issues, and staffing shortages in Florida. However, in a statement on Monday, the Federal Aviation Administration claims that there haven't been any air traffic-related cancellations since Friday. Although it did admit to similar issues that Southwest stated to have experienced, the FAA said that these delays only lasted a "few hours."
"Flight delays and cancellations occurred for a few hours Friday afternoon due to widespread severe weather, military training and limited staffing in one area of the Jacksonville Air Route Traffic Control Center," the statement reads.
Since other airlines like American Airlines and Spirit only experienced minor delays, it is believed that internal issues left Southwest unable to handle the minor changes which the company alluded to when addressing the issue.
"We've continued diligent work throughout the weekend to reset our operation with a focus on getting aircraft and crews repositioned to take care of our customers," Southwest Airlines said in a statement on Monday.
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