UPDATE: Almost two dozen arrivals and departures have been canceled at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport on Tuesday, as of 7 a.m.
The airport's website shows 10 arrivals canceled and 9 departures canceled.
According to flight tracking website FlightAware, more than 90 percent of cancellations in the U.S. on Tuesday are from Southwest. The airline canceled 2,500 flights. That's followed by Spirit Airlines with 75.
According to CNN, Southwest's delays happened because the storm hit Chicago and Denver, where Southwest has two of its largest hubs. The holidays and travel season arrived during a "tripledemic" with people coming down with Covid, the flu and RSV.
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MILWAUKEE — Millions of travelers across the country are trying to head to their post-holiday destinations after severe weather left many scrambling. One airline’s cancellations are causing some local travelers major headaches.
Check out the dozens of checked bags waiting to be claimed at @MitchellAirport after nearly 2000 @SouthwestAir flights are cancelled in the last 24 hours @tmj4 pic.twitter.com/OvDYw5sB0P
— Elaine Rojas-Castillo (@ElaineRCTV) December 27, 2022
Data from the flight tracking site FlightAware shows Southwest Airlines canceled more than half of its flights on Monday, nearly 2,000 total flights.
Travelers at Milwaukee Mitchell Airport say they’re stuck and haven’t heard anything from the airline, good or bad.
“We tried to call earlier. It said they're experiencing long wait lines, so we never got to speak to anyone. It would just be a dial tone, for the most part, and then if we even got somebody to kind of respond, it would just hang up on us,” said Danny and Sarah Fay.
Danny and Sarah Fay say they are just trying to start their honeymoon at Disney World but now have no idea when that might happen.
The two schoolteachers are just some of the people TMJ4 News spoke with at the airport who say their Southwest flights were canceled with no notice and no way of getting rebooked.
“This is really the only time we can get to take off. It's not even taking off. So, the plan has always been to leave this morning. But we saw that it was delayed, but until we got here, we didn’t know that it was canceled. So, we'll see if we ended up getting out there and figuring out what's going on,” said Sarah.
Jessica Conrad and her family are also heading to Orlando.
They also say their efforts to try to speak with someone at Southwest went unanswered.
Jessica says she is concerned that if her family is able to rebook their flight for another day, they still may not make it out.
“We are kind of nervous because we've talked to people who this is their second and third time coming back here for rescheduled flights and then they're being canceled. So, we're thinking if we rebook for Wednesday, will we get here and the same thing will happen again?” said Conrad.
For some travelers, the uncertainty pushed them to cancel their plans altogether.
After nearly three days of back and forth with delayed and rebooked flights, Tyler Kottke and his family were finally told that the soonest they could get on a flight to Houston would be New Year’s Day.
“We're planning on just going home and figuring out something to do at home, maybe go see a movie. We don't know yet. ‘You canceled your trip?’ Yes, we had to cancel our trip because there was no way that we were going to be able to fly to Texas and stay there for two days and fly back,” said Kottke.
Southwest says the airline is experiencing disruptions due to the “lingering effects of the winter storm.”
In a statement, the airline apologized and said they will work to make things right for those they have let down, including their employees.
