A major winter storm struck most parts of the U.S. over the holidays, leading to thousands of flight cancellations.

Southwest Airlines (LUV) bore the brunt of it, with more than 8,000 flights canceled between Dec. 22 and 26. The airline announced that it would not be able to reschedule flights for impacted customers until after Dec. 31.

“I think it’s going to be about another week before Southwest fully gets their act together,” Jim Corridore, senior insights manager at Similarweb, told Yahoo Finance Live (video above). “Their planes are still out of position. Their staff is still out of position. And apparently, they’ve had a significant technology outage in their staffing system where they outlay their staff for the flights. So it’s going to take a while.”

According to FlightAware, 62% of Southwest flights were canceled on Dec. 28, the highest rate among both domestic and international airlines. In comparison, JetBlue (JBLU) and Spirit (SAVE), the nearest U.S.-based airlines on the list, saw only 3% and 4% of their flights canceled on Wednesday, respectively.

'They really dropped the ball here'

Amid the airline’s meltdown, CEO Bob Jordan issued a public apology in a video posted on the company’s Twitter account. He stated that one of the main reasons for the major disruption was because Southwest is among the largest carriers in many of the cities that saw record freezing temperatures from the storm.

“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, adding that he was “optimistic to be back on track before next week.”

Corridore noted that all airlines were impacted by the severe weather, but Southwest appeared to be “uniquely affected because of their own internal issues.”

“It’s more than just the weather for them — it’s how they handled it,” he said.

At various airports across the country, Southwest found itself without pilots or flight attendants available, largely due to an outage in the airline's IT systems, which left them unable to locate necessary staff. As a result, customers were left stranded at airports as thousands of flights were canceled over the weekend.

“Southwest in particular — with their point-to-point network instead of a hub-and-spoke system — when their planes get out of position, their staffs get out of position, they’re ill-equipped to be able to respond,” Corridore said. “But in this case, they also did a horrible job communicating with the public. It seems they really dropped the ball here.”

Consequently, he continued, “customers are obviously outraged, more so at the fact that they’ve been left basically stranded at airports without any kind of information. Customer service agents are doing the best they can but with a lack of communication from the top. They don’t know how to handle the situation.”

According to Moody's Senior Vice President Jonathan Root, the true impact of the winter storm and flight disruptions will be seen in earnings.

"For the industry, I'm going to guess it could be a $750 million hit to earnings in the fourth quarter," Root told Yahoo Finance recently. "Southwest will bear the brunt, but they're going to be fine."

In response to the chaotic situation, President Biden tweeted that his administration was “working to ensure airlines are held accountable” and directed affected passengers to visit the Department of Transportation (DoT)’s website to find out if they’re entitled to compensation.

Meanwhile, DoT said it would be investigating Southwest specifically, with Secretary Pete Buttigieg telling CNN that his department will pursue fines against the company if it fails to meet legal obligations with reimbursing passengers.

"While all of the other parts of the aviation system have been moving toward recovery and getting better each day, it's actually been moving the opposite direction with this airline," Buttigieg said. "You've got a company here that's got a lot of cleaning up to do."

—

Adriana Belmonte is a reporter and editor covering politics and health care policy for Yahoo Finance. You can follow her on Twitter @adrianambells and reach her at adriana@yahoofinance.com.

Click here for the latest trending stock tickers of the Yahoo Finance platform

Click here for the latest stock market news and in-depth analysis, including events that move stocks

Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance

Download the Yahoo Finance app for Apple or Android

Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard, LinkedIn, and YouTube