立法者正在抨击西南航空公司大量航班取消最近几天，在假期期间，一股冷空气席卷了全国大部分地区，带来了冰冻的温度和降雪。
虽然一些航空公司面临着高水平的取消，但由于天气和据报道的系统崩溃，西南航空公司周一取消了至少70%的航班。该航空公司周二取消了62%的航班。
根据FlightAware的数据，圣诞节当天西南航空42%的航班被取消，48%的航班被延误。
西南航空公司目前正在进行“重置”，在没有乘客的情况下在全国范围内转移机组人员和飞机，以将资源投入到位并重新开始运营，但越来越多的立法者呼吁进行监督。
马萨诸塞州参议员埃德·马基。参议院商务委员会成员理查德·布卢门撒尔(Richard Blumenthal)敦促航空公司赔偿航班取消的乘客。
“公司可以从公平补偿航班被取消的乘客开始，不仅包括重新预订机票、机票退款、酒店、餐饮和交通报销，还包括对他们度假计划中断的大量金钱补偿。两位参议员周二在一份声明中说:“西南航空计划明年发放4.28亿美元的股息，该公司有能力为受到伤害的消费者伸张正义。”。
声明补充说，“西南航空不能声称这些航班取消是由最近的冬季风暴引起的，以此来避免对乘客进行赔偿。正如西南航空高管所承认的那样，昨日的大规模航班取消主要是由于其内部系统的故障。因此，这些取消应该被归类为“可控的”，西南航空应该对乘客做出相应的补偿。
华盛顿参议员玛利亚·坎特威尔。参议院商业、科学和运输委员会主席说，星期二她的小组将调查西南航班取消的原因。
“过去几天西南航空公司的问题不仅仅是天气。委员会将调查这些中断的原因及其对消费者的影响。许多航空公司在航班取消时未能与消费者充分沟通。消费者应该得到强有力的保护，包括更新消费者退款规则，”她说。
取消也引起了拜登政府的注意，总统乔·拜登谚语“政府正在努力确保航空公司被追究责任”和运输部说它是“关注西南航空公司不可接受的取消率和延误率&缺乏及时客户服务的报告“并将”检查取消是否可控以及西南航空是否遵守其客户服务计划。"
西南航空发言人杰伊·麦克维(Jay McVay)周一表示，风暴的方向对该公司取消航班的数量不成比例起到了作用。
麦克维在休斯顿的威廉·p·霍比机场说:“事实是，这场风暴从西向东席卷而来，几乎影响了我们最大的每一个机场，使我们陷入了难以恢复的境地，我们努力让我们的机组人员和飞机到达他们需要去的地方。”
这一解释并没有减弱航空公司面临的批评。
“这是西南航空公司各个层面的失败。我们的飞行员，我们的一线员工在巨大的压力下努力将我们的乘客从A地带到B地，但就西南航空公司而言，我们的手真的很糟糕，”西南航空公司飞行员协会主席凯西·默里上尉周一说。
Lawmakers bash Southwest over flight cancellations
Lawmakers are hammering Southwest Airlines over its spate of flight cancellations in recent days after a cold front blew in freezing temperatures and snow across broad swaths of the country during the holidays.
While several airlines faced high levels of cancellations, Southwest canceled at least 70% of its flights Monday due to the weather and a reported system meltdown. The airline canceled 62% of its flights Tuesday.
Forty-two percent of Southwest's flights were canceled on Christmas Day, and 48% were delayed, according to data from FlightAware.
Southwest is currently undergoing a "reset" and moving crews and aircraft around the country without passengers to put resources in place and restart operations, but there is a growing chorus among lawmakers pushing for oversight.
Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., members of the Senate Commerce Committee, pushed for the airline to reimburse passengers who had flights canceled.
"[T]he company can start by fairly compensating passengers whose flights were canceled, including not only rebooked tickets, ticket refunds, and hotel, meal, and transportation reimbursement, but significant monetary compensation for the disruption to their holiday plans. Southwest is planning to issue a $428 million dividend next year – the company can afford to do right by the consumers it has harmed," the two senators said in a statement Tuesday.
The statement added, "Southwest cannot avoid compensating passengers by claiming these flight cancellations were caused by recent winter storms. As Southwest executives have acknowledged, the mass cancellations yesterday were largely due to the failure of its own internal systems. As such, those cancellations should be categorized as 'controllable,' and Southwest should compensate passengers accordingly."
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., the chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, said Tuesday her panel will investigate the causes of the Southwest flight cancellations.
"The problems at Southwest Airlines over the last several days go beyond weather. The Committee will be looking into the causes of these disruptions and its impact to consumers. Many airlines fail to adequately communicate with consumers during flight cancellations. Consumers deserve strong protections, including an updated consumer refund rule," she said.
The cancellations have also caught the eye of the Biden administration, with President Joe Biden saying the "Administration is working to ensure airlines are held accountable" and the Transportation Department saying it is "concerned by Southwest's unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays & reports of lack of prompt customer service" and will " examine whether cancellations were controllable and if Southwest is complying with its customer service plan."
Southwest spokesperson Jay McVay Monday said the direction of the storm played a role in the airline having a disproportionate number of cancellations.
"It's just the fact that this one started West swept east and impacted almost every single one of our largest airports that put us in a position where we struggled to recover, and we struggled to get our flight crews and airplanes where they needed to be," McVay said from Houston's William P. Hobby Airport.
That explanation has done little blunt the criticism the airline is facing.
"It's been a failure at every level at Southwest. Our pilots, our front-line employees have worked under enormous stress to try to get our passengers from A to B, but we were dealt a really bad hand as far as Southwest is concerned," Capt. Casey Murray, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, said Monday.
