U.S. Southwest draws regulatory scrutiny as thousands more flights canceled: media

An agent of Southwest Airlines works at Dallas Love Field Airport in Dallas, Texas, the United States, Dec. 17, 2021. (Photo by Guangming Li/Xinhua)

The carrier's disruptions attracted scrutiny from the Transportation Department, which said it was looking into Southwest's handling of cancellations.

NEW YORK, Dec. 27 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Southwest Airlines accounted for 86 percent of canceled domestic flights in the country on Tuesday, drawing the attention of regulators amid a days-long meltdown of holiday air travel that began with a winter storm late last week, reported The Washington Post on Tuesday.

More than 2,900 U.S. flights were canceled on Tuesday among all carriers, with Southwest accounting for more than 2,500 of the total. The airline wasn't flying 63 percent of its scheduled flights on Tuesday, even as other carriers appeared to recover, said the report.

Among other major domestic carriers, about 2 percent of flights were not operating as planned, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware.

"The carrier's disruptions attracted scrutiny from the Transportation Department, which said it was looking into Southwest's handling of cancellations," said the report.

The chaos upended holiday travel plans for tens of thousands of air travelers at a time when industry executives and analysts expressed optimism over their ability to handle an onslaught of holiday passengers, it added.