Travelers at the Southwest Airline counter at Long Island airport

Source: Newsday LLC / Getty

Thousands of people were left at the terminal after Southwest Airlines canceled a massive number of flights. The New York Times reports:  

Five days after severe winter weather wreaked havoc on holiday air travel across the United States, most major carriers are back up and running. Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and United Airlines each canceled fewer than 40 flights on Wednesday, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking service. Delta had the fewest with only 15 cancellations. 

At Southwest, it was a very different story. 

More than 2,500 flights, or 62 percent of its planned flights on Wednesday, had been canceled, according to FlightAware. And Southwest said in a statement on Wednesday that it planned to fly one third of its scheduled flights for the next several days as it tries to return to normal operations, meaning it would continue to cancel close to 2,500 flights a day. Some passengers, unable to rebook Southwest flights, rented cars or spent hundreds of dollars to buy tickets on other airlines. 

Also, more on the Omnibus bill.

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