the department of transportation adding, they will hold southwest accountable if they do not take care of those stranded travelers. gabe cohen, cnn, baltimore, maryland. the southwest airlines snafu is taking a toll on the company s bottom line. in just the past week on wall street, southwest stock has fallen from $37 a share, to less than $33. that is about a 12% loss. reimbursing passengers will get expensive for the airline, airline industry analyst robert mann says this. you are looking at 1 million customers, if an average ticket is 250 to $300, that suggests that upper limit is 250 to $300 million in terms of absolute value. the question is, how do they differ that. i spoke earlier with cnn aviation analyst and i asked her what she thought would be the long term consequences for southwest from this fiasco. well, i think there will be
to at least hold her hand or spend that time with her. she spent her last few days just waiting on me. southwest says this chaos began with winter weather, but the airlines antiquated system struggled to track their planes and crews and connect them, resulting in this near weeks worth of canceled flights and missing luggage, as they repositioned those crews. we reached a decision point to significantly reduce our flying to catch up. and the airline s own employees want answers. it has been absolutely horrific. the most despicable working conditions that you can imagine. this is going to continue until there is a sweeping change to the way southwest operates. transportation secretary pete buttigieg vowing to hold the airline accountable, especially after staffing issues caused problems last summer. they provided commitments in writing, including southwest, that they would go above the previous level of what you would do to take care of customers, things like covering the c
from china, i will talk to a doctor about these restrictions, and whether they can be effective. after days of delays and cancellations, a southwest airlines slowly but surely seems to be working its way back to normal. but it won t get there right away. a representative for the pilots union says it looks like the flight schedule will be mostly full by friday. the airline has canceled more than 2300 flights for the coming day but that number jobs to only 39 cancellations by friday. airports are filled with long lines of southwest passengers trying to re-book as piles of luggage continue to grow. while other airlines recover from last week s winter storm fairly quickly, southwest has not. on tuesday, southwest accounted for 84% of cancellations among all airlines in the u.s..
passengers are stranded and struggling. i hate southwest. i hate them. reporter: amid the chaos we re seeing some remarkable gestures. i met 72-year-old pam shelby tuesday stranded and sleeping at baltimore s airport for days. i m scared i m not going to get out of here. i m by myself. reporter: a good samaritan saw her story on tv and bought her a ticket home to alabama leaving wednesday night. i just want to go take a shower and sleep and get this out of my mind. reporter: that person who bought you the ticket, what did that mean to you? she was a godsend. she was my angel. reporter: and i m also hearing from stranded travelers who say right now they re footing the bill for things like hotels, food, transportation unable to reach southwest customer service. now the airlines says those travelers should save their receipts which will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. the department of transportation adding that they ll hold
her. she spent her last few days just waiting on me. reporter: southwest says this chaos began with winter weather but the airline s antiquated systems struggled to track their planes and crews and connect them resulting in this near week s worth of canceled flights and missing luggage as they reposition those crews. we reached a decision point to significantly reduce our flying to catch up. the airline s own employees want answers. it has been horrific. the most desicable conditions you can imagine. reporter: this is going to continue. reporter: transportation secretary pete buttigieg vowing to hold the airline accountable. they provided commitments in writing, including southwest, they would go above the previous level to take care of customers. things like covering their costs if you get stuck and need a hotel and a meal in addition to rebooking. reporter: still, thousands of