Southwest Airlines cancels nearly 400 flights as maintenance woes, winter storms linger

Southwest Airlines' flight woes continue, with nearly 400 Thursday flights canceled due to maintenance issues and winter weather. Southwest had canceled 389 flights, or 9% of its schedule, as of 1:15 pm ET. That is the highest number of cancellations by any carrier and accounts for 51% of flight cancellations within, into or out of the US. Southwest attributed the high number of cancellations to weather challenges and continuing maintenance issues that have a pulled a higher-than-usual number of aircraft out of service. Southwest did not detail how many of Thursday's cancellations were due to maintenance and how many were due to weather. Tuesday, the airline said about half of its nearly 200 cancellations were due to maintenance issues. <br/>