Southwest hopes to resume normal operations Friday. Can the airline rebound from its historic meltdown?

After days of chaos, canceled flights and stranded travelers, Southwest Airlines said it plans to resume normal operations “with minimal disruptions” Friday.

But it remains unclear how long it will take passengers who spent days in limbo to reach their final destinations, reconnect with luggage or receive compensation for the weeklong meltdown.

“With another holiday weekend full of important connections for our valued customers and employees, we are eager to return to a state of normalcy,” the airline said in a statement Thursday.

Southwest was able to fly only one-third of its normal schedule Thursday, canceling 2,362 flights, according to the flight tracker FlightAware. As of Thursday afternoon, 53 flights originating at Los Angeles International Airport were canceled — the majority by Southwest — along with 54 incoming flights, and dozens more listed as delayed.

But the Dallas carrier has canceled fewer than 40 flights scheduled for Friday across the nation, less than 1% of its total schedule for the day, according to FlightAware.

The airline has been beset by problems since last week, when a winter storm pummeled much of the country, upsetting travel plans and causing widespread flight disruptions.

Though much of the industry recovered relatively quickly, Southwest remained in turmoil for days.

During the height of cancellations, Southwest gates and terminals at LAX and other area airports were crowded with passengers who showed up for flights they learned were grounded. Many travelers queued up for hours seeking help.

By Thursday, the chaos at the terminals had subsided; the Southwest terminal at LAX was eerily quiet, though the baggage claim remained lined with a mass of stranded bags around the idle carousels.

At the ticket counter, a handful of travelers checked in for their flights. They were the lucky ones: Of the 24 departures listed on the screens, 15 were canceled.

Patricia Bernard, 60, of Laurel, Md., planned to spend Christmas in Los Angeles with family.

After a shuffle in flights, she had a Southwest direct flight booked for the morning of Dec. 23 out of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

“I got there at 4 a.m. to hear my flight was canceled — no notice, nothing,” Bernard said.

Southwest rebooked her for Dec. 26 — meaning she would miss Christmas. Instead, Bernard’s children found her a flight on another airline, and she made it in time.

Now a week later, waiting in the terminal for her Southwest flight home with her granddaughter, Bernard said it might be her last with the airline.

“Their customer service leaves more to be desired,” she said. “I’m switching to Delta.”

Although the company is scrambling to address the immediate complaints, refund requests and scheduling challenges for its passengers, patching up its reputation will be equally important for Southwest to avoid losing loyal customers, according to public relations and crisis management experts.

“Unless they demonstrate to customers that this problem, which is unique to Southwest Airlines, has been solved, the carrier risks this snowballing into a significant issue that will negatively impact the brand in the years to come,” said Eric Rose, a crisis and reputation management expert at the Los Angeles communications firm EKA.

The airline canceled more than 13,000 flights — well above 50% of its schedule — since Dec. 22, according to FlightAware, and many more were delayed. The massive disruptions affected thousands of fliers, leaving them stranded at dozens of airports around the country without their luggage or else digging into their pockets to find alternative travel options, prompting a surge in demand for rental cars. The chaos has overwhelmed employees, including pilots, flight attendants and gate agents.

“We know even our deepest apologies — to our customers, to our employees, and to all affected through this disruption — only go so far,” the company’s statement said Thursday. “We have much work ahead of us, including investing in new solutions to manage wide-scale disruptions.”

The airline set up a new webpage for customers to submit refund and reimbursement requests for meals, hotels and alternate transportation, and to connect with baggage.

A day after Chief Executive Bob Jordan apologized to fliers, Chief Commercial Officer Ryan Green doubled down on a pledge that the company “would do everything we can, and work day and night to repair our relationship with you.”

“My personal apology is the first step of making things right after many plans changed and experiences fell short of your expectations of us,” he said.

The company is the country’s largest low-cost carrier, with routes to various airports in California, including Los Angeles, Oakland, Burbank, Sacramento, San Diego and San Jose.

The devastating winter storm that blasted the country just before Christmas sent holiday plans spinning into chaos. And Southwest’s fiasco was the “perfect storm” of well-known issues, industry experts and leaders of the company‘s unions said. They cited the company’s outdated technology and vulnerable operations that are particularly susceptible to disruptions, much less multiple coast-to-coast weather events.

Union leaders pointed out that Southwest this month reinstated dividend payments to shareholders for the first time since the pandemic struck. The company is scheduled to pay out $107 million to shareholders on Jan. 31 — money critics say would have been better spent on upgrades to the carrier’s aging technology.

Experts explained that the U.S. airline giant operates on a unique flight pattern — planes run from destination to destination instead of in and out of certain hubs — that leaves little room for error. It also has no partnerships with other airlines to assist with rebookings, and it operates with few open seats or backup crews. Delays can quickly spiral.

Aggrieved passengers continued to flood Southwest on social media Thursday about missing baggage, issues getting alternative travel reimbursed, and even challenges getting necessary medication.

The airline has said it will honor “reasonable requests for reimbursement for meals, hotel, and alternate transportation” for issues from Dec. 24 through Jan. 2 on a case-by-case basis. Southwest leaders have also pointed to a number of updates to the company’s websites for affected travelers, including features to allow fliers traveling through Jan. 2 to change their itineraries online, forms to help travelers locate lost luggage and refund requests forms for cancellations or expenses incurred because of the disruptions.

Danielle Pientka said she spent eight hours straight on hold for a Southwest agent this week — and still hasn’t gotten through. Her mother’s flight home to San Antonio was canceled Monday with no warning, and the next available flight wasn’t until five days later.

“We’re usually big fans of Southwest … so this was a pretty huge disappointment for us,” said Pientka, who lives in a Baltimore suburb. “We know that things happen with airlines. We can plan for a day or two, but this was almost a week.”

The crisis has drawn increased pressure from current and former legislators and consumer rights advocates, who are calling on the company to not only help stranded travelers but also to ensure they are adequately reimbursed.

Elaine Chao, the Transportation secretary under President Trump, told “CNN This Morning” on Thursday that Southwest was once a “paragon” in the aviation industry in part because of its customer and labor relations — all of which “has been put into question,” she said.

“They know they’ve got a lot of work to do to bring back and to build back the loyalty and the trust they used to have with the traveling public,” Chao said. “They are going to be under the scrutiny of regulators, of the administration. They’ve got a lot on their plate.”

Current Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told “Good Morning America” on Wednesday that the massive cancellation crisis “indicates a system failure” and that the agency will be “watching closely” to ensure Southwest meets its customer service commitments. Southwest’s compensation for passengers should cover flights along with meals, lodging and ground transportation because “this is the airline’s responsibility,” he said.

Charlie Leocha, president of the consumer advocacy group Travelers United, called Southwest one of the more “honorable airlines,” but said he has questions about the airline’s plans to reimburse travelers for additional expenses beyond their canceled fare.

“I don’t know how that’s going to work because they said it will be within reason,” Leocha said, suggesting the phrasing is ambiguous and could favor the airline.

Chase Lovelace, 30, of Nashville and his wife arrived four hours early at LAX on Thursday for their Southwest flight home. They were concerned the airport would be busy given recent chaos, but instead, they found a nearly empty ticketing area.

“We were supposed to leave the day after Christmas,” Lovelace said. “This was the first flight they could rebook us on.”

After spending all day Monday in the airport, the couple decided to book a hotel on their own.

“We’re keeping receipts, hoping to get reimbursed whenever they figure this out,” Lovelace said.

When asked whether he might prioritize alternate airlines for future travel, Lovelace deadpanned: “Get us home first. ... Maybe they update their systems and we stick with ‘em.”