SAN DIEGO — Southwest Airlines flight cancellations continue to snowball. The airline has already announced flight cancellations for Thursday.
The airline canceled 90% of its flights Wednesday and is warning it will continue canceling flights until it can get its operations back on track.
"I flew in from Dallas and this is my mom. She lives here," said traveler Caitlin Bailey,
She was one of the lucky ones.
"I'm glad all our stuff made it and we made it safely with the baby. Our precious cargo and that's all that mattered," she said.
For those who aren't so lucky, you have some options. A former airline manager, Kurt Ebenhoch, says Southwest will reimburse you for hotels or car rentals.
"Southwest is saying send in your receipts into us to a specific address and we will reimburse you. How long that's going to take for them to go through all that and process those refunds we will have to see," he said.
Southwest flights can't be purchased through third parties like Expedia. This means Southwest is the only point of contact for customers who are now bombarding the airline.
"Now they're all getting forced to use the Southwest website. All getting forced to go to the southwest call centers which are overwhelmed and crashing and can't get through," he said.
The winter storm caused widespread flight cancellations for many carriers, but Ebenchoch said the Southwest meltdown and slow recovery should've been avoidable.
"They have short changed the investment necessary to support an airline of this size. They still have infrastructure and technologies meant for a really tiny carrier," he said.
If your flight was canceled, you can request a full refund to your original payment method. Southwest says flights from Christmas day through Jan. 2, can rebook without paying any additional charge.
In the midst of all the Southwest cancellations, United and American have said they’re putting a cap on flight prices in some cities through Saturday. However, the airlines have not given a dollar amount on what that cap is.
WATCH RELATED: Southwest Airlines continues flight cancellations across the country (Dec. 2022).