Southwest Resuming Normal Flight Schedule Friday

The Southwest travel nightmare might be near an end. The airline plans to operate a full schedule on Friday after canceling roughly two-thirds of its flights over the last three days, reports the Wall Street Journal. That amounts to about 15,000 canceled flights in a busy travel week, with the AP estimating that 1 million passengers were affected. “I think we’ve turned the corner on what we’re running,” said Chief Executive Bob Jordan in an internal company video seen by the Journal. “I’m feeling good about where we are today, which I think is terrific progress."

Jordan has acknowledged that the airline's outdated computer systems contributed to the chaos after severe weather forced cancellations around Christmas. No other other airline had anything close to Southwest's problems, and the feds are investigating whether the airline was negligent. Meanwhile, passengers remained stranded at airports around the country, coping with what one described to USA Today as a "free for all" while trying to find their bags. (On Thursday, other airlines were helping to deal with the mess.)