WNY man stuck in Florida as Southwest cancels over 1,000 flights

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — Thousands of Southwest Airlines customers are stuck at the airport across the country this weekend.

The airline says an issue with air traffic control and the weather has caused significant delays. But passengers on the ground say they’re being left in the dark.

We talked with one Western New Yorker who tells us, he was supposed to fly out of Florida on Friday.

Southwest Airlines cancels more than 1,000 Sunday flights

His flight has now been canceled five times.

“They’re giving us absolutely nothing and I can’t get them to, I mean they’re not evening helping us pay for anything we’re paying for. They’re giving us nothing,” Phil R. said.

Southwest says as of this afternoon they’ve canceled more than 1,000 thousand flights or nearly one-third of its schedule.

We experienced weather challenges in our Florida airports at the beginning of the weekend, challenges that were compounded by unexpected air traffic control issues in the same region, triggering delays and prompting significant cancellations for us beginning Friday evening. 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.

With fewer frequencies between cities in our current schedule, recovering during operational challenges is more difficult and prolonged.

We’re working diligently to accommodate our Customers as quickly as possible, and we are grateful for their patience. We’re offering Customers added flexibility to explore self-service rebooking options on Southwest.com, where they can get updates on the status of their travel. We know the frustration flight cancellations are creating for our Customers and Employees and we apologize, and we again thank everyone for patience as we work first to be safe, and second to be as quick as possible in solving disrupted plans.

Southwest Airlines