Holiday travel is mostly nice, but with some naughty disruptions again on Southwest Airlines

Conditions were mostly pleasant this year for travelers flying before and during Christmas, but some nasty disruptions again hit those flying with Southwest Airlines.

For millions of people who traveled for the holidays, this year was much better than last. Christmas morning put the finishing touch to a relatively quiet weekend.

As of midday Monday, only 138 flights into, within or out of the United States had been canceled and 1,366 were delayed, according to the tracking website FlightAware.

This holiday season, U.S. airlines prepared for massive waves of travelers by hiring thousands of pilots, flight attendants and other workers in an effort to avoid the delays and cancellations that marred travel in 2022, culminating in the Southwest Airlines debacle. which left more than 2 million people stranded.

Still, Southwest again experienced hiccups over the weekend that the airline hoped to resolve by Monday. Only 2% of the airline’s flights were canceled Monday, although 12% were delayed, for a total of 524 flights, according to FlightAware.

On Saturday and Sunday, Southwest canceled 426 flights and delayed 2,689 flights, FlightAware data showed.

A Southwest spokesman blamed the problems on dense fog in Chicago on Saturday and Sunday that prevented planes from landing and said some additional cancellations might be necessary on Monday before what was expected to be a full recovery on Tuesday.

The AAA auto club predicted that between Saturday and New Year’s Day, 115 million people in the United States would travel at least 50 miles (80 kilometers) from home by plane or car. That’s 2% more than last year.

More than 2.6 million people were screened Thursday by the Transportation Security Administration, according to TSA records. Data for the weekend has not yet been released.

During Thanksgiving, a record number of people traveled through US airports, surpassing pre-COVID numbers in 2019 with a single-day record of 2.9 million people screened by TSA on Sunday, November 26.

Compared to last year’s holiday season, milder weather has helped keep air travel schedules on time.

But on the ground, road conditions were hazardous in some parts of the country on Christmas Day, due to accumulating snow and ice in the Midwest and Great Plains. According to the National Weather Service, most of Nebraska and South Dakota were facing blizzard conditions, and parts of eastern North and South Dakota were facing ice storms.

The busiest days on the road were predicted to be Saturday, December 23, and next Thursday, December 28, according to transportation data provider INRIX.