Missing bags pile up at Mitchell International Airport as Southwest cancels more flights

The line at the Southwest Airlines check-in counter at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport was much smaller on Wednesday. But a giant pile of unclaimed bags remained on the carousel waiting to be sent to their final destination or for their owners to pick them up.

The Southwest winter meltdown continues as travelers prep for another busy weekend ahead of the New Year. The airline has added a page to its website offering travelers the ability to check their flight, rebook a flight or get a refund for those trying to use the airline through Monday.

At Mitchell International, another 32 Southwest flights were canceled Wednesday and four were delayed, according to Flight Aware, which tracks flight information in real time.

Numerous reasons have been offered about why this debacle has risen to such a giant scale. The airline points to the winter storm that struck much the country last week, the customers point to the airline for lack of preparation for the storm, and the pilots union points to the inadequate technology the airline uses to track staff.

During the last five days of trading, Southwest Airlines stock has fallen nearly 10% from nearly $37 per share last Wednesday to slightly more than $33 a week later.

Other airlines have chipped in to help passengers trying to find alternative routes to their destination. American Airlines tweeted it is capping prices for select flights to places that have been affected the most by the nationwide cancellations.

On Tuesday, Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan apologized to customers via a video on the airline's website and said Southwest is the largest airline in 23 of 25 travel markets and the winter storm caused challenges "for all airlines."

"Our network is highly complex and the operation of the airline counts on all the pieces, especially aircraft and crews remaining in motion to where they're planned to go. With our large fleet of airplanes and flight crews out of position in dozens of locations. And after days of trying to operate as much of our full schedule across the busy holiday weekend, we reached a decision point to significantly reduce our flying to catch up," Jordan said.

"The tools we use to recover from disruption serve us well, 99 percent of the time; but clearly, we need to double down on our already existing plans to upgrade systems for these extreme circumstances so that we never again face what's happening right now."

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has criticized airlines for previous disruptions, said that “meltdown” was the only word he could think of to describe this week’s events at Southwest. He noted that while cancellations across the rest of the industry declined to about 4% of scheduled flights, they remained above 60% at Southwest.

From the high rate of cancellations to customers’ inability to reach Southwest on the phone, the airline’s performance has been unacceptable, Buttigieg said. He vowed to hold the airline accountable and push it to reimburse travelers.

“They need to make sure that those stranded passengers get to where they need to go and that they are provided adequate compensation,” including for missed flights, hotels and meals, he said Wednesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

On Tuesday, Buttigieg said on CNN that travelers who have their flights canceled are entitled to a cash refund.

"When you're in the situation and the airline is responsible, which is clearly the case right now, then you can get those kinds of vouchers for hotels, restaurants, but what I talked about with the Southwest CEO is that a passenger shouldn't have to request that, they need to be proactively offering that," Buttigieg said. "He pledged that they would, and again we'll be watching to make sure they follow through."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Missing bags pile up at Mitchell Airport as Southwest woes continue