Scores of passengers are still stranded in airports across the US following a wave of flight cancelations because of Southwest Airlines' ongoing cancelation chaos.
Southwest was responsible for more than 80% of the flights that were canceled on Wednesday. Passengers will not be able to rebook their flights until Saturday, December 31.
Southwest's antiquated and atypical systems made it vulnerable to the effects of the winter storm that wreaked havoc over the weekend.
As the week began, many airlines seemed to be back to normal operations, but Southwest's struggles have forced other airlines and CarRentals.com to try and meet demand.
Waleska Rivera blames Southwest for her travel problems even though she isn't a Southwest ticket holder.
A Colorado woman and her family were booked on a flight from Denver to San Juan, Puerto Rico with a connection through New York. Rivera said that the first leg of their trip had been delayed and that there was no chance that they would be able to connect to New York.
Rivera was desperate to get to her injured mother in Puerto Rico.
Rivera was told to cancel his travel first. She said the airline representative told her not to go.
Rivera was desperate to get in touch with her mother who took a tumble earlier this month. She said that the airline didn't offer to rebook the family on a different airline or give them compensation for the delayed flight.
She said that the most likely time that Rivera would be rebooked to Puerto Rico was this Friday. She was told that displaced Southwest passengers have been snatching up available tickets in order to rebook their flights with other airlines.
Insider's request for comment was not responded to by a spokesman for the airline.
Thousands of stranded passengers have turned to other airlines, leading to a spike in demand for tickets during the busiest travel period of the year.
The price of a single domestic ticket has gone up as much as $2,000 in some cases, prompting accusations of price-gouging.
American Airlines and Delta both said they would cap fares in certain cities. According to Pete Buttigieg, the Secretary of Transportation, he was talking with airlines to make sure they didn't take advantage of passengers.
Rental car shortages at airports across the country have been caused by stranded Southwest passengers turning to other forms of travel.
Several rental companies at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport were completely out of rental cars on Tuesday as desperate passengers stood in line for hours to secure transportation.
Travelers in St. Louis struggled. Passengers who weren't lucky enough to secure a car before the supply ran out spent the night on the floor of Midway Airport, while others sought strangers with which to ride.
Desperate people paid up to $2,000 to get a car before the store ran out of cars, according to a manager at the Houston store.
There has been a significant increase in rental requests in recent days at both airport and neighborhood locations, as well as a large jump in one-way rentals, according to a spokesman with the company.
The representative said that the company was dealing with increased demand for new bookings, reservation modifications, and one-way rentals.
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