Southwest Airlines Cancels Hundreds of Flights Due to Severe Weather

　　Weather-Related Disruptions

　　Southwest Airlines passengers are facing yet another round of travel disruptions, as the carrier was forced to cancel 786 flights on Monday and 336 flights on Tuesday as of 9:30 a.m. ET. These cancelations are a result of severe weather conditions brought on by a bomb cyclone that has swept across the Plains, causing dangerously cold temperatures and impacting many of Southwest's routes, including those in cities like Chicago and Denver.

　　Impact on Operations

　　On Monday, Southwest was compelled to cancel 12% of its flights, and so far on Tuesday, 9% of its operations have been shut down, according to FlightAware. The cancelations are expected to ease as the storm moves eastward and temperatures begin to rise. However, Southwest has led the industry in flight cancelations for three consecutive days, highlighting the significant impact of the weather conditions.

　　Industry-Wide Impact

　　While Southwest has been the most affected airline, other carriers have also been impacted by the weather. United Airlines has canceled 295 flights on Tuesday, representing 12% of its total operations, while KLM has canceled 167 flights, which is approximately 26% of its schedule. In total, there have been 2,398 cancelations on Tuesday, following over 4,500 cancelations on Monday.

　　Delays and Groundings

　　In addition to the cancelations, there have been 43,173 flight delays over the same period. These disruptions come after a challenging week for the airline industry, marked by the grounding of all Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft following an incident where a piece of the fuselage blew off an Alaska Airlines flight while it was 16,000 feet in the air. United and Alaska Airlines are the two largest carriers that operate the Max 9 in their fleet, while Southwest does not fly any Max 9 planes.

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