Southwest Airlines canceled about 65 percent of its flights and can take days to get 'back on track' as the holiday travel chaos continues.
The airline led with the most amount of cancelations on Monday with 2,645, according to FlightAware. On Christmas, Southwest canceled 42 percent of its flights, or 1,635.
Bob Jordan, CEO of Southwest, told employees that it can take days for the airline to resume normal operations.
'The winter storm was unprecedented all across our network,' Jordan said in a statement obtained by the Wall Street Journal. 'And we’ve got fallout from that—just trying to get the network back to normal.'
Southwest canceled about 65 percent of its flights on Monday
The company's CEO told staff that it can take days to get 'back on track' as the airlines struggles with staffing issues and the winter storm
The volume of cancelations and delays by Southwest was led by the storm and lack of preparedness.
Southwest has a hub of planes in Chicago and Denver, but both of those areas were significantly impacted by the storm which led to planes freezing.
Union representatives claimed that flight attendants and other crew members are stuck in different states across the US after a series of cancellations.
The airline doesn't have their precise locations since stranded workers took matters into their own hands and booked their own accommodations when the company failed to help in a timely manner.
'We have crews stuck, and scheduling doesn’t know where they are,' Casey Murray, a union representative for the airlines told the news outlet.
The CEO confirmed that the company's scheduling platforms are not advanced enough for the current crisis.
Crew members are scattered and stuck in different areas of the country as more flights are cancelled and delayed
Meanwhile, a Delta Air Lines flight from Atlanta to San Francisco was forced to make an emergency landing in Nashville on Monday morning due to an engine issue, as the holiday travel chaos continues.
The flight with 185 passengers and six crew members on board made the landing after the pilot received a notification about the engine less than an hour after takeoff, a Delta spokesperson told DailyMail.com.
The crew decided to land at Nashville International Airport as a precaution. No one was injured on the flight and the plane landed without incident. Passengers waited there more than three hours for another plane.
Travel chaos has plagued the US over the holiday weekend as a catastrophic storm hit, killing at least 55 people in the US and Canada.
On Monday, more than 2,519 flights were canceled in the US - and another 4,309 delayed, according to Flight Aware.
The flight was traveling to San Francisco from Atlanta when the crew received the notification about the engine (stock image)
About 185 passengers and six crew members were onboard. Passengers were dropped off at Nashville International Airport and were delayed by more than three hours while waiting for another plane
A passenger on the San Francisco-bound flight called the incident 'unnerving,'
'Just lost an engine on a @Delta flight from Atlanta,' Mark Katches wrote on Twitter. 'Haven't even had my coffee yet.'
The Delta flight added to the chaotic list of issues for travelers attempting to be with their loved ones for the holidays.
Tens of thousands of Americans have been affected over the past week after a nationwide 'bomb cyclone' snowstorm grounded flights and closed runways.
Passengers have been forced to sleep on the floor as some airports closed their runways 'indefinitely,' including in Seattle-Tacoma where a storm hit on December 23.
Thousands of people were left stranded inside the airport on Friday and all the hotels nearby are fully booked. The runways at the airport reopened on the same day.
Photos showed travelers with blankets as they slept on chairs and other open areas.
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport closed all of its runways and all flights are canceled due to freezing rain on Friday
The storm has caused the cancellation of thousands of flights across the country and ruined Christmas for many Americans
Passengers were forced to sleep on the floor at Seattle airport after the runways were closed
People were seen sleeping on the floor in the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport
Some travelers decided to avoid long flight delays and cancellations and took matters into their own hands.
Bridget Schuster, Greg Henry, Abby Radcliffe and Shobi Maynard were stranded at the Tampa, Florida, airport on December 22 after their flight home to Cleveland, Ohio was canceled.
The four, who appeared to be in their 20s, joined together after meeting for the first time at the airport and decided to drive about 20 hours to Ohio rather than wait for the earliest flight out on Christmas Eve.
They shared their adventure on TikTok, amassing millions of views as they journeyed through gas stations and rest stops, blizzards and downpours, before making it home.
Greg Henry, Abby Radcliffe, Shobi Maynard and Bridget Schuster drove for 20 hours from Tampa to Cleveland to make it home for Christmas after their flight was canceled on December 22
The only stops they took were for gas, food and for people to use the restroom. Above, snow angels with two hours left of the journey
A continuous winter storm continues to envelop much of the United States, bringing record-breaking low temperatures for 200 million Americans, blinding blizzards, freezing rain and flooding.
The storm that arrived last week stretched from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the Mexican border.
In response to the inclement weather, President Joe Biden said: 'This is a really serious weather alert. Please take this storm extremely seriously.'
The NWS warned: 'In some areas, being outdoors could lead to frostbite in minutes.'
Residents and travelers in the Western US, including in central California, can expect the storm to continues through Wednesday as a cyclone and a cold front move inland.
Meanwhile, in Buffalo, another 36 inches of snow is predicted until Tuesday.
The city has been battered by the bomb cyclone as the National Guard has been deployed to help with rescue effort. As of Monday afternoon, at least 27 people in upstate New York had died as a result of the storm.
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