zip codes in four states, there were service outages. those christmas gifts will wind up being new year s gifts by the time that employees can get in there. yeah. what do you think is the lesson here for just going back to what southwest is dealing with? because this is because of, and they re admitting, their own system. the system that relies largely on 90s technology of not talking about planes but communication and phones. right. to tell pilots and flight attendants where to go. not digitally updated and why we re in this predicament. interesting moving forward if southwest actually updates those systems. the lesson for us travelers, becomes a domino effect, weng system failure in the case of southwest, a weather issue, saw that with other airlines. takes one thing, one flight, one, you know, storm and then
only major u.s. airline that s dealing with this issue of mass cancellations. so many days after this winter storm. in places where there really is no weather issue anymore and the union that represents southwest pilots says this is really not about the winter storm. this is about outdated processes and outdated i.t. so, again it is a messy situation only expected to get worse in the coming days, and certainly messy for tens of thousands of passengers stranded mostly just trying to get home. and the company concedes that, too, saying there s a lot to fix on the system that tells the pilots and flight attendants where to go, but what pain for travelers as a result . gabe, thanks for the reporting. also the death toll in new york s erie county has risen to 27 amp governor hochul said it is the blizzard of the century. thousands of people left at home without power or heat and
cancellations, really days after cities like baltimore had any sort of weather issue. if you look at flightaware, the flight-tracking website, southwest is responsible for more than ten times the number of any other u.s. airlines cancellations just yesterday. certainly today. they re responsible for the vast majority, guys. yeah. what a struggle. not just for passengers, for flight attendants, for everybody. gabe cohen. thank you. from baltimore go to chicago, and standing by in chicago midway international, southwest flights in and out of there as well. right? i mean, i wonder what you re hearing from folks there? reporter: oh, we are hearing a lot and gabe laid out one element of the story. the other challenge passengers are dealing with, finding their luggage. you can take a look for yourself, poppy. just look over here. a sea of bags. as far as the eye can see. one gate agent told me she s
southwest airlines spokesperson said about the cancelations. with the cancelations, as a result we end up with crew not in the cities we need to be in to continue our operations and that s how we ended up where we are. you heard that there. can you give us a little more insight? was this a mechanical issue or a staffing issue, and it couldn t be a weather issue. what was going on here that caused this problem? well, thanks for having me. what the southwest spokesman said, that s their job, and that s where they failed. it pains me to hear, you know, in the lead-in to this our customers going through what they are going through. our pilots have stepped up and we are the most productive in the world trying to get all of our customers from a to b, but at the end of the day, this is a management failure. this has been going on for years. we have warned them and have seen multiple meltdowns getting
passengers? well, technically if it s a weather issue, they don t owe passengers anything. it sounds like southwest is trying to do the right thing and help customers because it s not a weather issue. i ve been saying for years in europe they have things in place that if you have a delay of longer than a certain time or cancellation, you re entitled to a certain at of compensation, up to $500 or $600. they don t have that here in the united states. i hope this leads to something like that to help passenger rights as we fly into the future. we ll see if that happens. thanks, lee. that will take a lot to get that thanks. sure. it go so cold in western new york that this lakefront restaurant literally froze over. blizzard conditions burying homes in five to six feet of snow. is there any relief in sight? to ian oliver on what is next. ian? good afternoon. yeah, finally we re starting to