SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Flight chaos has left hundreds of passengers stranded and looking for any way to get home.
Anyone trying to book a flight could see some drastic price differences. For example, a short flight from LAX to Sacramento is available next month for under $100. However, if anyone wants that flight tomorrow, it could cost nearly $3,000.
It's all part of a travel nightmare that doesn't seem to end as Southwest Airlines continues to deal with a crisis impacting people across the country. The airline canceled at least 70% of its flights yesterday.
Flight Aware, a flight tracking website, says those cancelations accounted for half of all airline cancelations worldwide. At Sacramento International Airport (SMF), the chaos continued with 144 flights out of SMF canceled, 141 of which were Southwest flights.
"I know that it was going to be a little hard during the holidays, but I didn't think it would be like this," said Caia Flath, a traveler.
Meanwhile, others are navigating a labyrinth of luggage.
"It's just incredible that all of this luggage belongs to people that aren't here right now," said Walt Banham, of Rocklin.
A SMF spokesperson says, "Luggage is the responsibility of the airlines but SMF has offered to open up secure rooms to hold luggage, we also have stepped up security of guarding that luggage on the ground floor with our sheriffs team and Operations staff."
As far as how this all happened, it has to do with the way Southwest operates its flights. The airline is based in Dallas, but it doesn't use a "hub and spoke" structure like most major carriers. Instead, it uses what's a called a "point to point" model.
Southwest can offer more direct flights, but they have less ability to recover when things don't go to plan, leaving their crews out of position for their next routes and people missing holiday celebrations.
President Joe Biden tweet that his administration is "working to ensure airlines are held accountable."
The U.S. Department of Transportation also released a statement saying, in part, they are "concerned by Southwest's unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays & reports of lack of prompt customer service."
They said they will look into whether cancelations were controllable.
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