Atlanta

Hundreds of Atlanta travelers frustrated after dozens of Southwest flights canceled

ATLANTA — Southwest Airlines customers across the country are frustrated after the company canceled more than 2,000 flights over the weekend.

More than 100 of those flights affected travelers either coming or going from Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, according to real-time flight tracker Flight Aware.

“It’s been very frustrating,” traveler Derrick Childs told Channel 2′s Kristen Holloway. “To get a text at 12:35 saying your flight is canceled, just stuck.”

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Childs says he and 11 of his family members came to Atlanta for a wedding over the weekend. When they woke up Monday morning, their flight back to Arkansas had been canceled, and they couldn’t get on another flight.

“They have nine flights leaving out, but they said all of them are full,” Childs said.

While the airline offered to put the family up in a hotel and give them a credit, the family opted to get a full refund. They are planning to rent a van and make the drive back to Arkansas.

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Rick Walker says he also got a full refund from Southwest and managed to book another flight with United Airlines, but it wasn’t without frustration.

“We went from Pennsylvania, delayed in Pennsylvania because of technical difficulties for like three hours, got sent to Washington. Pennsylvania took too long to get to Washington, so [the flight] left. So they found us a new flight [to Atlanta] and we stayed here overnight until this morning. And being that they messed up our baggage again, we gotta wait until 10 p.m. tonight to leave,” Walker described.

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Southwest Airlines posted a statement to their Facebook page that read in part,

“Air Traffic Control and disruptive weather resulted in a high volume of cancellations through the weekend.”

That same statement goes on to say that if you travel was affected, you can rebook your flight here.

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