President Joe Biden announced Tuesday that his administration will hold airlines themselves accountable for an excessive amount of flight delays and cancelations over the holiday weekend.
Thousands of flights were canceled last week and continued to be so on Tuesday, keeping people stranded at airports and disrupting holiday plans for many.
“Thousands of flights nationwide have been canceled around the holidays. Our Administration is working to ensure airlines are held accountable,” Biden wrote in a tweet on Tuesday. “If you’ve been affected by cancellations, go to @USDOT’s dashboard to see if you’re entitled to compensation.”
Thousands of flights nationwide have been canceled around the holidays.
Our Administration is working to ensure airlines are held accountable.
If you’ve been affected by cancellations, go to @USDOT‘s dashboard to see if you’re entitled to compensation. https://t.co/r0YBCPyKes https://t.co/1ZdqhBOAoL
— President Biden (@POTUS) December 27, 2022
12,000 flights were canceled within the United States between Wednesday and Saturday last week. On Christmas Day, at least an additional 3,181 flights were canceled, while 4,000 were canceled on Monday. More than 3,000 other cancelations continued to hamper travel on Tuesday, with more expected Wednesday and Thursday, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.
A majority of the flights canceled were with Southwest Airlines. Southwest blamed the major winter weather conditions that hit the nation over the weekend for their woes, as well as their system for being unable to handle the overload.
“USDOT is concerned by Southwest’s unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays & reports of lack of prompt customer service,” The Department of Transportation said Tuesday on Twitter.
“The Department will examine whether cancellations were controllable and if Southwest is complying with its customer service plan,” it added
