doing the job right. and that s the at the end of the day that s what you know, that s what s going to solve any problem at southwest is either people walking over to the other airline counters or customers i have a word for you. it s called ole gaupally. there are certain places where airlines really do monopolize. they have so much market power the government does have to step in and say, look, guys, follow the rules, act right or you re going to get in trouble. what do you think it is? i said cockpit. no? you can t buy the cockpit. what do you think? the exit row seat. that s a good guess. no, it s the worst seat on the
is cnn newsroom with rosemary church. thanks for joining us. it is the travel nightmare after christmas. thousands of flights are being canceled across the u.s. after the monster arctic storm that pummeled much of the country over the holiday and for southwest airlines in particular it is an utter catastrophe. right now the flight tracking website flightaware shows more than 2,700 total cancellations in the u.s. on tuesday. of those more than 90% are southwest flights. the company says it s being forced to scale back its flight schedule to get operations back on track and get crews in the right places. southwest s ceo says it s the largest scale event he s ever seen. meantime passengers are stranded at airports struggling to get answers on when they ll be able to reach their destinations. we ve seen incredibly long lines at airline counters and tons of luggage piling up at
and get to have you with, us it is the nightmare after christmas, thousands of flights are being canceled across the u.s.. after the monster arctic storm that pummeled much of the country over the holiday. and for southwest airlines in particular, it is and other catastrophe. right now, the flight tracking website flightaware shows more than 2700 total cancellations in the u.s. on tuesday. and of those, more than 90% of southwest flights. the company says it is been forced to scale back its flight schedule to get operations back on track, and get crews in the right places. southwest ceo says it is the largest scale event he has seen. meanwhile, passengers are stranded at airports struggling to get answers on when they will be able to reach their destinations. we have seen incredibly long lines at the airline counters, and tons of luggage piling up baggage claims.
on me now, of course, one of them being our tv light and lights like you would see as a construction light that have been brought in. tower lights along this walk way as well as inside the doors to my right where the airline counters are as well to allow people to communicate with officials here, law enforcement, security, and whatnot, to try to find them a place to go because as one atlanta police officer told me, it s not safe or sanitary for anyone to think it s good idea to stay here overnight. oh, my. kaylee hartung, thank you for that report. this airport the size of atlanta will throw a monkey wrench into the entire country s flight schedules especially at the peak of the holiday season. i want to bring tom in. you ve been look at flight trackers, seeing how this is going to impact the ripple effect so to speak. what are you finding out?
it s cooled down into the upper 70s now. so it s not as unbearable to be out on the tarmac as it would be in say june, july or august. still, a very uncomfortable situation. everybody who evacuated terminal one and terminal two, especially in terminal one, they ran out full speed. i watched two waves of this happen. there are untold numbers of suitcases just strewn all over the inside of terminal one in the area where you would a prone the airline counters and check in and check your bags. so everybody is basically a lot more calm right now. you can see that on their faces and in their demeanor and attitude than they had been say about 30 to 45 minutes ago. after that news conference with the sheriff, the airport spokesman, the fbi chief and the