At Southwest Airlines, a day of calm

>> Southwest Airlines returned to a relatively normal flight schedule Friday, as the focus shifts to making things right with what could be well more than a million passengers who missed family connections or flights home during the holidays, and many of whom are still missing luggage.

The Dallas carrier, which had canceled thousands of flights every day this week after a winter storm last weekend, reported 43 cancellations Friday. While that was still more than United, American and Delta combined, it’s progress following one of the most chaotic weeks in aviation history for a single airline.

Federal regulators have vowed a rigorous review of what happened at Southwest, with all eyes on outdated crew-scheduling technology that left flight crews out of place after the storm hit, essentially shutting down almost all of the carrier’s operations.

On Friday, however, Southwest passengers reported relatively empty flights, some with one person to a row, as the carrier reshuffled routes and sent planes, and crews, to where they needed to be.

John and Rosaria Monte had been watching their Southwest flights closely this week as the airline struggled and their home city of Buffalo, New York, dug out for a deadly blizzard.

They had no trouble Friday flying from Buffalo through Chicago to see their daughter and enjoy some warmer weather in Dallas for New Year’s.

“My husband kept checking it (the flight schedule) through the night and early this morning and everything went accordingly,” Rosaria said. “They were super friendly everywhere and not a problem.”

Yet if even one leg of a flight was scheduled with Southwest this week, there were very different emotions.

“I’m still reeling from the experience,” said Theresa Kraus, arriving home Friday in Dallas after being stuck for four days in Washington,

D.C.

Kraus left late last week just before the storm to see her children for Christmas, and was supposed to return Tuesday.

“I paid my daughter’s roommate $100 to stay in her room and had my medication FedEx-ed to me,” Kraus said.

Kraus is a frequent flyer, and has grown frustrated with Southwest.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in a letter to Southwest CEO Robert Jordan late Thursday called the week of disruptions “unacceptable.”

“While weather can disrupt flight schedules, the thousands of cancellations by Southwest in recent days have not been because of the weather,” Buttigieg wrote. “Other airlines that experienced weather-related cancellations and delays due to the winter storm recovered relatively quickly, unlike Southwest.”