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Several of Southwest Airlines’ competitors will place price-caps on travel to help the thousands of passengers stranded by the budget carrier’s mass flight cancellations this week. This news comes as the embattled air company said it had “no updates or adjustments to share” pertaining to its flight schedule on Friday.
American Airlines and United will implement a ceiling on air fares between certain cities, according to CNN. Delta has implemented “walk-up fare caps in US domestic markets”, a spokesperson for the carrier told Axios.
Alaska Airlines, which told Axios that it already had price ceilings in place, will also cut fares in certain cities. Frontier Airlines reportedly said that it limited its top fares to “pre-disruption levels”. Spirit, meanwhile, was waving “modification changes or fare difference” between dozens of cities through 3 January, the news outlet said.
Southwest has axed 2,357 flights on Thursday, far eclipsing any other carrier, data from Flightaware.com indicates. On Wednesday, Southwest cancellations reached 2,510. Federal authorities said they would investigate the transit meltdown.
Southwest’s descent into logistical chaos started on Thursday 22 December. While many airlines saw cancellations due to a historic winter storm that brought blizzard-like conditions to much of the US, Southwest cancelled numerous flights in areas such as southern California that were not reeling from inclement weather.
The cancellations waylaid thousands of flyers over the holiday weekend and into this week, with no clear path for returning home.
