The United States federal government has launched an investigation after thousands of airline passengers were left stranded and searching desperately for their bags following Storm Elliott’s chaos. US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has referred to the flight disruption as “a complete meltdown of the system”.

The US Department of Transportation will examine thousands of flight cancellations by Southwest Airlines over the holiday weekend, a massive disruption which left thousands of holiday travellers grounded, even in areas of the country not suffering from winter storms.

In a tweet on Tuesday, President Joe Biden said: “Thousands of flights nationwide have been cancelled around the holidays. Our administration is working to ensure airlines are held accountable.”

Biden directed affected travellers to a transportation department website which outlines airlines’ obligations to consumers.

While most major US carriers were hit by cancellations caused by a major winter storm, Southwest was particularly hard hit. Travellers and reporters across the country described chaos at local airports, with hours-long lines, delays stretching into multiple days, baggage areas overflowing with stranded luggage, and Southwest airline agents in tears after dealing with furious passengers.

Out of the 2,770 cancellations already made for Wednesday flights within, into or out of the United States as of 9am ET, 2,507 of them are operated by Southwest, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.

Southwest cancellations caused chaos even in regions with warmer holiday temperatures, with reports of hundreds of flights cancelled or delayed across southern California, particularly in Los Angeles and in San Diego, where local news outlets reported that every Southwest flight out of the airport had been cancelled on Monday night.

In all, Southwest has cancelled more than 15,700 flights since winter weather began disrupting air travel on December 22. That figure includes more than 2,300 flights already cancelled for Thursday. Other US airlines have since recovered from the storm disruptions.

Denver International Airport is leading the way on Wednesday in the number of cancellations. At Chicago Midway and Dallas Love Field, close to half of Wednesday flights are cancelled.

Southwest plans to fly a reduced schedule over the next few days to reposition crew and planes, airline CEO Bob Jordan said in a video released by the airline late Tuesday. “We’re optimistic to be back on track before next week,” Jordan said.

Buttigieg says he spoke directly to Jordan on Tuesday about the thousands of flights that have been cancelled this week.

“Their system really has completely melted down,” Buttigieg told CNN. “I made clear that our department will be holding them accountable for their responsibilities to customers, both to get them through this situation and to make sure that this can’t happen again.”

“From what I can tell, Southwest is unable to locate even where their own crews are, let alone their own passengers, let alone baggage,” said Buttigieg, adding that he also spoke with leaders of the airline’s unions representing flight attendants and pilots.

The vice president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, Capt. Mike Santoro, said the problems facing Southwest were the worst disruptions he’d experienced in 16 years at the airline.

He described last week’s storm as a catalyst that helped trigger major technical issues.

“What went wrong is that our IT infrastructure for scheduling software is vastly outdated,” he said. “It can’t handle the number of pilots, flight attendants that we have in the system, with our complex route network.

“We don’t have the normal hub the other major airlines do. We fly a point-to-point network, which can put our crews in the wrong places, without airplanes.”

He added: “It is frustrating for the pilots, the flight attendants and especially our passengers. We are tired of apologising for Southwest, the pilots in the airline, our hearts go out to all of the passengers, they really do.”

Lyn Montgomery, president of the Transport Workers Union representing Southwest flight attendants, said she and other labour leaders have repeatedly told management that the airline’s scheduling technology is not good enough.

“This has been something we have seen coming,” she said. “This is a very catastrophic event.”

“We are past the point where they could say this is a weather-driven issue,” Buttigieg said in a follow-up interview posted by ABC News on Wednesday. “Don’t get me wrong, all of this began with that severe storm. We saw winter weather affecting the country and severely disrupting all airlines.”

Source: Civil Aviation Authority-Qatar