Southwest Passengers Stranded In Droves As Thousands Of Flights Cancelled

I happen to be part of a Disney planning group on Facebook and I scrolled past a post showing the Nashville airport right now. I can’t link the post because it’s a private group, but the two pictures show hundreds of bags lined up, filling all available empty space in the baggage claim area. But here’s kind of what it looked like.

I thought, ‘Hmm, that’s crazy holiday travel!’ But it turns out it isn’t just holiday travel. Apparently, Southwest Airlines flights are being cancelled all across the nation and tons of passengers are being stranded. According to CBS,

“The winter storm that disrupted travel plans over the weekend and created an epic pile-on of flight cancellations for Southwest Airlines left the carrier’s passengers “beyond frustrated,” as one put it to CBS DFW. Thousands of families were stranded, with some waiting days to board planes.”

FlightAware, an online flight tracking data company, showed that on Tuesday, Southwest had cancelled more than 2,500 flights, which accounts for 63% of their flight schedule.

“That accounted for more than half the roughly 4,650 flights that have been scrapped today. Airlines also continued to experience disruptions, with Southwest leading the way with more than 500 delayed flights.”

Check out the boards in Dallas showing every flight cancelled.

CBS reported that the federal Department of Transportation “said it would investigate the meltdown, saying it was ‘concerned by Southwest Airlines’ disproportionate and unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays as well as failure to properly support costumers experiencing a cancellation or delay.”

But I have absolutely no faith whatsoever in Transportation Secretary Paternity Pete Buttigieg’s ability to investigate and address this transportation disaster. Do you know why? It’s because of his priorities. Here’s a fabulous tweet that shows exactly what Pete Buttigieg has done for the airlines thus far, and where his priorities lie.

He pledged to “diversify aviation workforce,” especially pilots. Then he refused to raise the FAA mandatory retirement age from 65 to 67, even as it became clear that there would be a pilot shortage due to the mandatory retirement of an entire generation of pilots. He said he was “not going to be on board with anything that compromises safety,” because having a 67 year old in the cockpit is so dangerous when we have a demented octogenarian in the White House with nuclear codes. What he REALLY meant was that he actually WANTS all the old white pilots to be forced to retire so they can be replaced by politically correct candidates to make good on his diversity pledge. He basically admitted this when he said, “The answer is not to keep the baby boomer generation in the cockpit indefinitely.” And hey, I get that. I’m for term limits in the government because of this. But the problem is that Paternity Pete didn’t make sure there were qualified candidates lined up to take the place of all the pilots who would be simultaneously retiring as they all turned 65. As a result, there’s now a pilot shortage.

The reason this matters isn’t just because it speaks to Paternity Pete’s priorities and his ability (or lack thereof) to deal with this transportation disaster, but also because it likely contributed to it. It’s not just that the planes are grounded because of a storm. It’s that even the planes that might actually be able to fly CAN’T fly because there aren’t enough pilots to fly them. On a good weather day, they could call pilots in to cover the flights of pilots who are stuck in bad weather and can’t make their scheduled flights. But when there aren’t enough pilots to go around because there’s a pilot shortage thanks to our transportation secretary prioritizing identity politics over transportation…