Southwest Airlines canceled more than 2,300 flights on Thursday as the airline’s CEO Bob Jordan promised that customers affected by the mass cancellations over the past several days will be taken care of.
Southwest canceled a total of 2,362 flights on Thursday — 57 percent of its flights — after over a week of what the airline has described as “operational challenges.”
However, the number of cancellations was down from the 2,510 flights canceled on Wednesday. As of 12:00 p.m. Eastern on Friday, the airline had nixed just 43 flights.
On December 30, Southwest announced that it was returning to a “normal schedule” ahead of the New Year’s weekend.
“We appreciate the dedicated work of the Southwest Team to restore our schedule, and we anticipate minimal disruptions for the weekend,” the statement read.
“Once again, we value the continued patience and support of our valued Customers, and we apologize for the inconveniences of the past week,” the airline added.
During an appearance on Good Morning America, Southwest CEO Bob Jordan said the airline is committed to reuniting customers with their baggage and processing refunds.
“Beyond safety, there is no greater priority than taking care of our customers, reuniting them with their bags, getting their refunds processed,” he said.
“Our desire is to go above and beyond,” he continued. “We always take care of our customers.”
“There will be a lot of lessons learned in terms of what we can do to make sure that this never happens again, because this needs to never happen again,” he added.