Southwest Airlines sees more than 1,000 delays on Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was another busy day for travelers.

An estimated 54,000 people were expected to pass through Raleigh-Durham Airport.

Travelers flying on Southwest Airlines ran into some problems Sunday. Southwest had more than 1,000 delays and 100 cancelations Sunday according to flightaware.com.

In the morning, RDU had 6 delays and 1 cancelation. The canceled flight was Southwest, and three of the delays were also Southwest.

There was also a canceled Southwest Airlines flight in Charlotte and two Southwest Airlines delays.

A representative from Southwest Airlines said travel was being impacted largely by fog at Chicago Midway that began Saturday night and prevent inbound aircraft from landing, forcing some diversions and cancelations.

"With visibility remaining below required operational minimums throughout the night and continuing this morning, we’ve modified our planned start for today (Sunday) at Chicago Midway," said the representative. "We have all-hands on deck as our employees are working quickly to take care of our customers and accommodate them on alternative flights."

Southwest Airlines said Chicago Midway is their fourth busiest airport operation, with more than 200 departures a day scheduled over the holiday weekend.

"We continue to experience some delays and diversions as fog remains a factor. We apologize for the inconvenience to our customers as we work to get them to their destination safely," said an airline representative.

While the number of delays and cancelations are nowhere near the amount of flights impacted last Christmas, some travelers will no doubt nervously recall last December, when roughly 10,000 flights were canceled over a four-day span over the Christmas holiday, leaving thousands of people stranded across the country. Southwest Airlines blamed their internal systems.

Thousands of people were also left stranded around the holiday season of 2021, when multiple major US airlines saw mass cancelations and delays over Christmas weekend, as staff and crew called out sick among the Omicron surge.