在周二一份近三分钟的视频声明中，西南航空首席执行官鲍勃·乔丹(Bob Jordan)表示，他对该公司在假日周末的失败“深感抱歉”，并赞扬了该公司的员工，他说，在该公司取消了数千个航班后，他们“正在以各种方式出现”。
“我每天都在向他们道歉，”他说。
航空公司取消数千次飞行这成了许多乘客的圣诞噩梦冬季风暴员工问题给美国带来了巨大的灾难
大多数主要航空公司取消或推迟了航班，但由于报道的系统崩溃，西南航空公司周一取消了至少70%的航班，超过2，600次。混乱持续到周二，该航空公司取消了当天62%的航班，周三取消了62%的航班。
乔丹将一些问题归咎于西南航空公司如何构建其飞行路线。
“我们围绕社区而不是枢纽制定航班时刻表，因此我们是美国前25大旅游市场中23个市场中最大的航空公司，在这些城市，由于创纪录的严寒给所有航空公司带来了挑战，大量定期航班同时冻结，”他说。
乔丹补充说，西南航空公司正在“大幅减少”未来几天的航班数量，希望事情能“在下周之前回到正轨”。"
“我们专注于安全地将所有的碎片放回原位，以结束这场滚动的斗争，”他说。
西南航空公司现在正在进行“重置”，在全国范围内转移一些没有乘客的机组人员和飞机，让他们到位并重新开始运营。西南航空已经停止出售未来几天的航班机票。乘客被鼓励购买其他航空公司的航班，以便在新年前到达目的地。
乔·拜登总统在推特上说，他的政府正在“努力确保航空公司对这些变化负责”。拜登敦促那些受到取消航班影响的人访问交通部网站，看看他们是否有权获得赔偿。
假期期间，全国数千个航班被取消。我们的政府正在努力确保航空公司被追究责任。如果您受到取消的影响，请访问@USDOT看看你是否有资格获得赔偿。https://t.co/r0YBCPyKes https://t.co/1ZdqhBOAoL
—拜登总统(@POTUS)2022年12月27
FlightAware的数据显示，圣诞节当天，西南航空42%的航班被取消，48%的航班被延误。截至周一晚上，数据显示美国国内、进出美国的近4000架航班被取消，超过7700架航班被延误。
州长称，水牛城遭受“世纪暴风雪”袭击
西南航空公司的杰伊·麦克维周一晚上说，全国范围内“风暴的规模之大”影响了所有主要机场。
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。”
西南航空公司飞行员协会主席凯西·默里上尉在周一早些时候的一份声明中说，这场磨难是“灾难性的”
“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工作，试图让我们的乘客从A地到B地，但就西南航空而言，我们的手真的很糟糕，”默里说，并补充说，他们的“流程”，信息技术或基础设施“只是不支持运营。”
“不幸的是，我们的客户首当其冲，”默里补充道。
交通部长皮特·布蒂吉格周二告诉美国广播公司新闻直播节目，西南航空公司必须修复与乘客和机组人员的关系。
“整个系统中所有其他航空公司的取消率加起来平均约为5%。对于西南航空公司，这一比例更接近60%或70%。“这是令人震惊和不可接受的中断水平，加上乘客无法通过电话找到任何人来帮助他们，航空公司表示他们实际上无法完全了解自己的机组人员在哪里。”
Buttigieg说，当航班被取消时，乘客有权退款，在这种特定情况下，应该提供额外的住宿，如支付食物、地面交通和酒店的费用。
“正如我向首席执行官明确表示的那样，你不应该提出要求。这应该是他们主动提供的东西，”他补充道。
周一，愤怒的西南航空客户在Twitter上分享了他们对延误、取消和长时间等待客服人员的不满。
西南航空在网上发布的一份声明中表示:“随着我们网络中连续几天的极端冬季天气的到来，持续的挑战正在以令人无法接受的方式严重影响我们的客户和员工。”。"我们对此由衷的歉意才刚刚开始."
西南航空表示，该公司正在努力通过重新定位其机组人员和飞机来“解决大规模中断”，这些人员和飞机都在错误的地点。
运输部周一晚上发表了一份声明，称其“对西南航空不可接受的取消率和延误率以及缺乏及时客户服务的报告感到担忧”。该部门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。
美国广播公司新闻采访了三名滞留旅客——一名在波士顿机场过夜，直到她的新航班，一名在航班取消后滞留在芝加哥，还有一名在航班出现问题后与一名陌生人驾车前往坦帕的迪士尼游轮。
每位旅行者都将延误归咎于工作人员，而不是天气。
ABC新闻联系了美国航空公司、捷蓝航空公司、达美航空公司和联合航空公司，以了解员工如何影响他们目前的延误和取消。
“像整个行业一样，美国航空公司的运营受到了冬季风暴埃利奥特的严重影响。美国航空公司在一份声明中说:“经过12月23日周五充满挑战的一天，美国的运营在周六晚上基本恢复，自圣诞节以来我们一直正常运营。”。“只有美国团队在我们的机场、飞机、运营和预订中心辛勤工作，我们才能快速恢复。”
“我想乘飞机回家过圣诞节，”正从波士顿飞往旧金山度假的莱蒂霞·杜勒告诉美国广播公司新闻。“我一排队，他们就说，‘你的航班取消了。就像，再见。"
埃里克·杰尼根告诉ABC新闻，当他的达美航班因为缺少机组人员而被取消时，他正试图从密西西比州的杰克逊飞往佛罗里达州的坦帕参加迪士尼巡游。
在杰克逊-梅德加威利埃维斯国际机场受阻后，他和其他五个人决定开车去佛罗里达。
随着暴风雪进入该地区，纽约布法罗市启动了旅行禁令。
据纽约州州长凯西·霍楚尔和当地官员称，一场巨大的湖泊效应暴风雪过后，该州已有29人死亡。
布法罗尼亚加拉国际机场周一宣布，它将关闭至周三，因为其工作人员正在“夜以继日”地恢复机场运行。
Southwest CEO apologizes to passengers, staff after flight cancellation chaos
In a nearly three-minute video statement Tuesday, Southwest CEO Bob Jordan said he is "truly sorry" for the airline's failures over the holiday weekend, praising the airline's employees, who he said "are showing up in every way," as the airline grapples to catch up after canceling thousands of flights.
"I'm apologizing to them daily," he said.
Airlines canceled thousands of flights in what became a Christmas nightmare for many passengers as winter storms and staffing issues wreaked havoc across the U.S.
Most major airlines canceled or delayed flights, but Southwest Airlines canceled at least 70% of its flights Monday -- more than 2,600 -- due to a reported system meltdown. The chaos continued Tuesday, with the airline canceling 62% of flights for the day and canceling 62% of flights on Wednesday.
Jordan attributed some of the issues to how Southwest constructs its flight paths.
"We build our flight schedule around communities, not hubs, so we are the largest airline in 23 of the top 25 travel markets in the U.S., cities where large numbers of scheduled flights simultaneously froze as record bitter cold brought challenges for all airlines," he said.
Southwest is "significantly reduc[ing]" its number of flights over the next few days," Jordan added, in the hope that things will "be back on track before next week."
"We're focused on safely getting all of the pieces back into position to end this rolling struggle," he said.
Southwest is now doing a "reset" by moving some crews and planes around the country without passengers to get them into place and restart operations. Southwest have stopped selling tickets on flights coming up in the next few days. Passengers are being encouraged to buy flights on other airlines to get to their destinations before the new year.
President Joe Biden tweeted that his administration is "working to ensure airlines are held accountable" amid the changes. Biden urged those who have been affected by cancellations to visit the Department of Transportation website to see if they're entitled to compensation.
Thousands of flights nationwide have been canceled around the holidays. Our Administration is working to ensure airlines are held accountable. If you've been affected by cancellations, go to @USDOT's dashboard to see if you're entitled to compensation. https://t.co/r0YBCPyKes https://t.co/1ZdqhBOAoL
— President Biden (@POTUS) December 27, 2022
On Christmas Day, 42% of Southwest's flights were canceled and 48% were delayed, according to data from FlightAware. As of Monday night, data showed that nearly 4,000 flights had been canceled within, into or out of the U.S., while more than 7,700 had been delayed.
Jay McVay with Southwest Airlines said Monday night that "the sheer size of the storm" nationwide affected all major airports.
"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.
Capt. Casey Murray, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, said in a statement earlier Monday that the ordeal has "been catastrophic."
"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," Murray said, in part, adding that their "processes," information technology or infrastructure "just wasn't there to support the operation."
"And, unfortunately, our customers are bearing the brunt of it," Murray added.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told ABC News Live Prime on Tuesday that Southwest must repair its relationship with passengers and crew.
"Cancellation rates across the system for all of the other airlines together are averaging about 5%. With Southwest, it's more in the neighborhood of 60 or 70%," Buttigieg said. "It's a shocking and unacceptable level of disruption combined with passengers being unable to get anybody on the phone to help them, and the airline indicating that they're actually not able to fully keep track of where their own flight crews are."
Buttigieg said passengers are entitled to refunds when their flights are canceled and that additional accommodations -- like covering the cost of food, ground transportation and hotels -- should be provided in this specific scenario.
"As I made clear to the CEO, you shouldn't have to request it. This should be something that they're proactively offering," he added.
Angry Southwest customers took to Twitter on Monday, sharing their frustrations over the delays, cancellations and long hold times to speak to customer service agents.
"With consecutive days of extreme winter weather across our network behind us, continuing challenges are impacting our customers and employees in a significant way that is unacceptable," Southwest said in a statement posted online. "And our heartfelt apologies for this are just beginning."
Southwest said it is working to "address the wide-scale disruption" by repositioning its crew and planes, which were all in the wrong spots.
The Department of Transportation issued a statement Monday night, saying it's "concerned by Southwest's unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays and reports of lack of prompt customer service. The Department will examine whether cancellations were controllable and if Southwest is complying with its customer service plan."
ABC News spoke with three stranded travelers -- one staying overnight at an airport in Boston until her new flight, one stranded in Chicago after his flight got canceled and one driving with a stranger to make it to his Disney Cruise in Tampa after flight issues.
Each traveler blamed delays on staffing rather than the weather.
ABC News reached out to American Airlines, JetBlue, Delta and United to learn about how staffing is impacting their current delays and cancellations.
"American's operation, like the entire industry, was heavily impacted by Winter Storm Elliott. After a challenging day on Friday, Dec. 23, the American operation was largely recovered by Saturday evening and we have been operating normally since Christmas Day," American Airlines said in a statement. "Our quick recovery was only made possible by the American team working diligently at our airports, on our aircraft and in our operations and reservation centers."
"I wanted to fly home for Christmas," Laetitia Duler, who was flying home to San Francisco from Boston for the holiday, told ABC News. "As soon as I entered the line, they were just like, 'your flights canceled. Like, bye.'"
Eric Jernigan was trying to fly from Jackson, Mississippi, to Tampa, Florida, for a Disney cruise when his Delta flight was canceled because of a lack of crew, he told ABC News.
He and five others decided to drive to Florida after getting stuck at Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport.
The city of Buffalo, New York, initiated a travel ban as blizzard conditions moved into the area.
According to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and local officials, 29 people have died in the state following the aftermath of an enormous lake-effect snowstorm.
Buffalo Niagara International Airport announced Monday that it will be closed until Wednesday as its crews work "around the clock" to get the airport back up and running.
