out on seeing their loved ones at all this holiday season. we had to wait in a line that was four hours and still in line. and nobody s giving us any direction what tline to get in. a total you know what show here. according to southwest, nowhere to be found. hung up on multiple times. and southwest, they don t give any answer. they don t answer the phone. there s no option to rebook anything online. oh, also been on hold for 5 hours and 43 minutes. 5 hours and 43 minutes on hold. that logjam starting with the powerful winter storm that battered western new york. look at that in particular. this morning people in buffalo struggling to get food, water, medicine. basic necessities, after days of driving bans and closed stores. live to buffalo in a moment but want to start with the thousands of southwest airline cancellations this morning. cnn s adrieene broaddus is live at chicago s midwear airport and nick valencia at atlanta s airport. we see bags behind you.
southwest planes zigzag across the country, and it s that complexity to the airlines operation that has made it really hard for the airline to recover from this winter storm. yeah. a really interesting point. thinking about these thousands of people either in an airport right now or thinking about getting on a flight for the new year or traveling. what do you say to them jp if they re supposed to fly on southwest right now, what should they do? yeah. well, at this point southwest is no longer rebooking customers for flights through friday. so they have what they call zeroed out the inventory and trying to reset the operation. if you do need to go somewhere, at the moment your best option is to find alternative plans. so that could mean finding a last-minute ticket on yanother airline. consider renting a car. at this point southwest, you should, if you can, find a backup option, and especially now, because the travel system is stretched so thin, being that it s one of the busiest ho
hotels in new york. got on a bus down here. 14 hours. now stranded in atlanta looking at their options. you ll hear from them later next hour. looking at the lines, moving inch by inch at this point hoping for good news at this point, but not many are getting it here in atlanta. it s a tangled up mess at this point. nick valencia and adrienne broaddus, thank you to you both. stranded southwest passengers saying they re extremely frustrated. we heard from that one man. 5 hours 43 minutes on hold. sometimes totally unable to get through to airlines customer service lines to rebook flights or find that lost luggage. and even southwest employees say they have been unable to communicate with the airline. listen this is not a staffing issue. this is a systemss issue. southwest airlines was staffed ready to go to work but when they chose to take flights into the middle of the storm, not
up. a spokesperson here told me if midway was not the final destination for passengers they will not be able to get their luggage, and that s something else that has frustrated people, because they ve been here waiting. they can see their bags, but they weren t allowed to leave with them. jessica? ooh, boy . that is frustrating and enraging for a lot of people. the airline saying the weather caused this. pilots saying outdated software. nick, go to you in atlanta. what s happening there? is it any smoother there? reporter: well, a little more smooth than we re seeing in midway but the post-christmas travel chaos hit atlanta as well. this line behind me is a line for southwest. most of these passengers we ve spoken to have already had their flights canceled. they re in line here hoping to get options for rebooking. those that we have spoken to say they ve been here for an hour