Southwest Airlines has canceled thousands of flights across the country in the midst of a hectic and messy holiday travel season, including at the Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport.
Bozeman’s airport is the state’s only hub for the major airline carrier, and similar to the rest of the country, has had a continued streak of canceled inbound and outbound Southwest flights.
At least eight Southwest flights coming and going from the Bozeman airport were canceled Wednesday. On Tuesday, nine were canceled.
Southwest had the most flight cancellations in the country this week. The airline had canceled 2,509 flights by Wednesday afternoon, according to the flight tracking database FlightAware. United Airlines, another major airline with a hub in Bozeman, only had 26 cancellations.
Despite the cancellations, the now-familiar scenes of stranded passengers and islands of lost luggage were not to be seen in the airport’s departure terminal Wednesday. There was a line at least 20 people deep for United, with passengers checking in one-by-one at a brisk pace. Only a handful of passengers were at the Southwest desk.
Brian Sprenger, the executive director of the airport, said that most of the long lines from canceled flights are found at major hubs, like the Denver International Airport.
Denver’s airport is leading the country in canceled flights, with 392 flights to and from the airport canceled Wednesday afternoon.
Sprenger said that weather caused an impact on holiday travel — subzero temperatures gripped Bozeman and other parts of the country last week, causing over 20 flight cancellations in a day at the airport.
Sprenger added that most other airlines operating at the airport had recovered by Christmas Day.
“After that, most of the impact has certainly been on Southwest,” Sprenger said.
There are typically between four and six Southwest flights leaving from Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport on a given day. The airline has been canceling about half of those flights in the last few days, Sprenger said.
He added that other airlines have gone through situations before, whether it be caused by storms or computer issues.
“When you have as complex of a system that the airlines operate it is occasionally going to happen,” Sprenger said.
Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan alluded to the complexity of the airline’s system in a statement Tuesday, adding that the company needed to upgrade the systems for “these extreme circumstances.”
A spokesperson for the airline said that Southwest is still operating at a reduced capacity and “flying roughly one third of our schedule for the next several days.”
The airline has set up sites for passengers wanting to rebook or request a refund, and for assistance with baggage.
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