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Southwest Airlines Cancels More Flights Amid Major Meltdown; Deaths in Western New York Climb to 28 Amid Blizzard of the Century; Russia Says, Three Soldiers Killed after Drone Shot Down. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired December 27, 2022 - 07:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: In the picture, and so then they matched it up.

[07:00:02]

And here is what they found. In 36 countries, women scored significantly better than men did. In 21 countries, their scores were similar. In zero countries did men score better than women, and this was across many different countries, as you mentioned. This was people ages 16 to 70. So, this is a wide range of people from different cultures.

And it really tells you something about how people read faces. For example, we know that people with autism have trouble kind of reading what the rest of us would see as very easy kind of cues on people's faces. But, apparently, women are better reading faces. There's probably all sorts of biological or environmental reasons why that could be, but that's what they found. Poppy, Kaitlan?

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Elizabeth Cohen, thank you. That's fascinating.

CNN This Morning continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We didn't get any texts or any message telling us it was canceled before we came.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What will you do if your flight is canceled or --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go back home, hang out with pops for a couple more days, call my boss and tell him, I'm sorry. Hope this wasn't a bad decision.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone, who's not at the airport today. Don is off this morning. As you can see there, I mean, it has just been chaos at the airports over the last several days. It has not changed as flights have been canceled, travelers have been stranded. Southwest Airlines forced to scrap more than 60 percent of its flights today.

HARLOW: Also, the death toll is rising amid a record-breaking blizzard in Buffalo, New York. We're live on the ground there.

COLLINS: Also this morning, Ukraine's foreign minister is aiming for a peace summit in the New Year. Could Russia potentially be invited to the table and will they show up?

HARLOW: Also, we're going to take you this hour to El Paso, Texas, where border officials say they are encountering more than 1,500 migrants a day.

HARLOW: But, first, we start this morning with a major meltdown for southwest airlines during a very busy holiday travel rush, the airline canceling about 60 percent of its flights today. Thousands of passengers have been left scrambling to make alternative plans as flight after flight and city after city has been canceled. Southwest Airlines CEO telling The Wall Street Journal this is the largest-scale event that I have ever seen. The airline says it will most likely have to cancel even more flights today.

CNN's Gabe Cohen is live at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport in Baltimore, Adrienne Broaddus is standing by at Chicago's Midway International Airport.

We'll start with you, Gabe. How are things looking this hour? I see a lot of people behind you. We've heard from some passengers who say they've been on the phone waiting to reschedule flight for more than six hours. They've been in these lines at the airports for several hours. What's happening as of right now?

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, Kaitlan, we're hearing a lot of that frustration, people arriving to the airport just to realize their flight is canceled. But if you look behind me, that's the Southwest ticketing counter. It's not the zoo that it's been in recent days but reason why -- well, the story is right here on the board. Look how many canceled flights there are for Southwest. Most of that done preemptively last night, canceling more than 60 percent of the airline's flights today, more than 2,500 of them, the vast majority of all canceled flights across the country.

And the CEO of the airline told The Wall Street Journal that they're only expecting to fly just over one-third of their flights, their scheduled flights here in the coming days, as they try to regroup after the winter storm and the holiday rush.

Take a listen to one of those Southwest officials speaking last night about this issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAY MCVAY, SOUTHWEST SPOKESMAN: First and foremost, we absolutely apologize. Hospitality is, I'll say, number two behind the safety aspect, as it should be, but we do apologize to our customers. We will do everything we need to do to right the challenges that we've had right now, including while we are willing to offer hotels, ride assistance, vans, whatever that looks like, rental cars to try and make sure these folks get home as quickly as possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

G. COHEN: Now, again, Southwest has largely blamed that huge winter storm last week, saying that most of their flight attendants, their pilots, were left in the incorrect cities and trying to regroup, get pieces back in place, which is part of why they're canceling so many flights in the days ahead.

But there are a lot of people who are questioning that explanation given the fact that they are the only major U.S. airline that's dealing with this issue of mass cancelations, really days after cities like Baltimore had any sort of weather issue. If you look at FlightAware, the flight-tracking website, Southwest is responsible for more than ten times the number of any other U.S. airlines cancelations just yesterday, certainly today. They're responsible for the vast majority, guys.

[07:05:01]

COLLINS: Yes. What a struggle, not just for the passengers, for flight attendants, for everybody. Gabe Cohen, thank you. We'll check back in with you.

HARLOW: All right. So, from Baltimore, let's go to Chicago now. Adrienne Broaddus joins us, standing by in Chicago Midway International. Southwest flights in and out of there as well, right? I mean, I wonder what you're hearing from folks there.

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, we are hearing a lot. And Gabe laid out one element of the story. The other challenge passengers are dealing with, finding their luggage. You can take a look for yourself, Poppy. Just look over here, a sea of bags, as far as the eye can see. One gate agent told me she's never seen so many bags here.

This is where travelers normally come to get their luggage. Normally travelers are here waiting for their luggage, but the luggage is just here waiting for people to find it, as, you know, luggage is not a human.

Anyway, the other thing they don't want to see, boards like this, showing all of the canceled flights. In and out of the U.S., data shows at least 2,800 flights have been canceled. And along with the cancelations and not being able to find their luggage, travelers are frustrated. Listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, my family was headed to Punta Cana on Friday morning, and they had -- it took them almost three hours to load the luggage and we weren't able to make our connecting flights. So, they pulled us off the flight but sent our luggage to Fort Lauderdale. We still haven't been able to get our luggage back. I just found one of them. One of the other ones ended up in Punta Cana and the other four are still missing.

I've been here for an hour just trying to find my bags and nobody seems to be able to help me or tell me where they even could be.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Problem is that Southwest, they don't give any answer. They don't answer the phone. So, we don't know where our luggage is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROADDUS: So, another day of packing patience. In addition to all of these bags, we've also seen strollers and car seats. So, families traveling with small children don't have their belongings but they also don't have an essential item if they happen to leave the airport.

Meanwhile, I did speak with a Southwest representative here at Midway International Airport after a traveler told us she couldn't even go on the other side to get her bag. Well, the rep said, that it's right. If Midway is not the final destination for a passenger, they are not releasing those bags. Poppy?

HARLOW: Even if someone wants them back there?

BROADDUS: She cannot get her bag back. She says she has her son's active duty uniform in that bag. They were trying to get to another relative's wedding today, but they can't get it. They're sending the bag to its original final destination, even though she's not going there anymore.

HARLOW: I mean that is -- I'm speechless. Adrienne, Thank you.

COLLINS: Well, let's talk more about this. We've got Captain Michael Santoro, who is the vice president of the Southwest Airlines Pilot Association here with us. He has been a Southwest pilot more than 13 years. I wonder what is your understanding of what went wrong here.

CAPTAIN MIKE SANTORO, V.P., SOUTHWEST AIRLINES PILOTS ASSOCIATION: Well, thanks for having me, Kaitlan. So, the storm that hit last week was the catalyst of this, but what went wrong is that our I.T. infrastructure for scheduling software is vastly outdated. It can't handle the number of pilots, flight attendants that we have in the system with our conflicts throughout the network. We don't have the normal hub and spoke, like the other major airlines do.

We fly a point-to-point network, which can put our crews in the wrong places with our airplanes, mismatched, and that's what happened and our software can't keep track of it. So, they don't know where we are, they don't know where the airplanes are and it's frustrating for the pilots, the flight attendants and especially our passengers. And we're tired of apologizes for Southwest, the pilots of the airline and our hearts go out to all of our passengers, it really does.

COLLINS: Yes, I can see how frustrating it is. So, it seems like you're saying this is a problem they could have -- that Southwest could have predicted essentially.

SANTORO: So, yes, they should have technically canceled some more flights coming out of Denver that day. You know, wind, weather was really bad there. But we have been timing this for years. We have a meltdown like once a year the past five or six years, and every year, we go in do an after-action. And the SWAPA, the union leadership, we go in, talk to leadership and we tell them, you guys need to fix your scheduling software, the scheduling systems and how you operate our schedules, and to no avail.

[07:10:05]

They never update, never invest the money and resources they need to, and so we continue to have these issues. Of course, this is the largest disruption I've ever seen in my 16 years at the airline.

COLLINS: Really? It's largest you've ever seen?

SANTORO: For sure. It's embarrassing.

COLLINS: Seems this is just as much trouble for the pilots, and that I was reading pilots have had to book their own hotels when the airline didn't assign them. Flight attendants, some of them spent the night on cots, in crew lounges. What is the difficulty there? Because it was essentially that they didn't know where a lot of the pilots were because they're displaced all over the country.

SANTORO: Yes. So, we have, you know, over 10,000 pilots altogether, not that many are flying at one time, but imagine everybody is in the wrong city without hotel assignments and trying to find hotels. The phones, so you can't even get through to our scheduling people or our hotel desks. And so, yes, pilots resort to finding our own accommodations. And we certainly encourage them to do that.

So, you know, after 30 minutes of trying, we just say, go find your own accommodations, get some rest, because, obviously, safety is number one, the biggest thing for us, important and a rested pilot is essential to that.

COLLINS: Yes. It's remarkable to hear that we've heard from customers saying they were waiting for hours to speak with representatives, even pilots are having trouble getting them on the phone.

We also heard from the Transportation Department saying that they are concerned about what they say is this unacceptable rate of cancelations and delays and reports of a lack of prompt customer service. They say they're looking into this. What kind of action do you want to see here?

SANTORO: Well, I mean, I know what I want to see. We have a lot of systems in place in our contracts that we've actually -- have expired over two years now and we're negotiating. A lot of things in place to fix these issues in our contract with our work rules that would help alleviate some of theirs. And I want to see series investments and changes happening in our scheduling department to make this work.

COLLINS: Yes, it's clearly not working now. Captain Michael Santoro, sorry for your troubles, thank you for joining us this morning, though, to shed some light on this.

SANTORO: Thanks for having me. HARLOW: Well, this morning Western New York is bracing for up to 12 more inches of snow today after what is being deemed the blizzard of the century has left 28 people dead. Officials fear that number will rise after the storm dropped nearly 50 inches of snow, leaving thousands of customers without power or heat, leaving emergency vehicles struggling to reach drivers stranded in very dangerously cold temperatures.

Polo Sandoval joins us again Live in Buffalo, New York, with more. Polo, good morning. Again, it goes without saying, thank you to you and your whole crew. You've been dealing with all of this and it just continues.

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And now those frigid temperatures, Poppy, and with that rising death toll, the reality is people here in Buffalo will always remember this as the blizzard of '22. What we also know is that resources are now coming in from other New York State communities, for one, resources to plow and help clear out the streets to make them more drivable, and also resources and first responders to be able to get the people who still have been stuck in their homes since late last week. So, that kind of gives you a sense what the situation's like. The driving ban is still actually in place this morning.

They did scale back on some of those measures in some of these surrounding authorities, but for Buffalo itself, that will be in place at least for now. Authorities will revisit that. I have seen a few more vehicles on the streets.

But, look, we've been basically shelter in place along with other Buffalo residents for four, going on five days, Poppy, and so many people have told us that they are hearing that their pipes burst back in their home. So, even after they can finally leave a hotel and head to home, it's going to be far from over for them. So, everybody is certainly looking forward to, though, that 50 degrees that within reach, but that will also mean as massive snow melt, right?

HARLOW: It will, right? And there are dangers that come with that.

The death of toll of 28 when we were on the air yesterday, it was 13, and they were just about to update it higher. Are there concerns that you're hearing from emergency officials they think that death toll is going to rise even more?

SANDOVAL: Absolutely. The way we've heard it from the executive of the county of Erie basically saying that the medical examiner's office has been receiving bodies and then they are the ones that ultimately have to decide whether or not the death of an individual is directly linked to this storm, and that includes individuals who suffered cardiac event while they were shoveling the snow.

Obviously, people that were found in their vehicles, 13 of the ones who have been counted so far were found outside. So, ultimately, it is the medical examiner's office here in Erie County that will decide exactly if that fits that criteria, and, sadly, the reality is that number is likely to rise, but it already surpassed what was seen here in '77 with the blizzard then.

[07:15:13]

HARLOW: Yes, it has surpassed that. Polo, thank you again for the reporting.

Well, ahead, a drone strike hitting deep into Russian territory. There is a particular significance to where this strike happened, at a military facility. We'll talk about that, ahead.

COLLINS: Also ahead, we are going to be joined by the El Paso County commissioner, David Stout, as officials are working to shelter and process the latest influx of migrants.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Welcome back to CNN This Morning. The Ukrainian Air Force has not yet claimed responsibility for a drone strike that killed three Russian servicemen on Monday but they're also not denying it. The attack happened hundreds of miles deep into Russian territory at the port city of Engels.

[07:20:03]

It is the second attack on the city this month, which houses a strategic Russian bomber air base.

Let's talk to David Sanger, CNN Political and National Security Analyst and White House National Security Correspondent for the New York Times, about this.

David, help us understand it, because it is so foreign, right, to so many of our viewers. So, if you can help explain the significance of where this strike was in Russia, maybe comparing it to the United States and what it would be like in the United States.

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Sure. So, first of all, this base is pretty far from the Ukrainian borders. It's about 300 miles in. So, this is one of the furthest strikes in to Russian territory that the Ukrainians have launched. And it looks like they did it with one of their own drones. The U.S. has said no striking into Russia with American-provided weapons, but they haven't put any restriction on using Ukrainian-developed weapons.

We don't know how much damage it did but the nature of the target is pretty interesting. Engels Air Force Base is in fact a strategic bomber base. That is, that's where they keep some of the bombers that they would use if they attacked the United States. So, to answer your comparison question, it would be a little bit like somebody hit Offutt Air Force Base out of Nebraska, out near Omaha, which is where the U.S. keeps some of its strategic bombers and where its strategic command is headquartered and then said, but don't worry, we weren't really going after your nuclear assets, we were going after the other assets. I'm not sure we'd completely believe them. And in this case the worry is the Russians would say, well, this is beginning to infringe on our nuclear deterrent. COLLINS: And, David, what does this mean for Russia in the sense, are they being forced to move planes? How does this complicate what they've been doing in Ukraine?

SANGER: Well, Kaitlan, there are two forms of complication here. One is they have got to move some assets around. And that's, of course, what the Ukrainians are trying to force them to do, because we think from this base they have launched some of the planes that have sent cruise missiles into Ukraine, which have done huge destruction to the cities and to the infrastructure.

The concern, Kaitlan, is this, that at this point, the Ukrainians are basically betting that the Russians are throwing everything at them except nuclear weapons. And they think the Russians won't cross that line, that basically Russia will not make this a nuclear confrontation. We suspect they're probably right, but you don't know that for a fact.

And the question is whether Putin at some point will feel as if he is losing so on the conventional battlefield that he has to change the nature of the game by using a tactical weapon, and that, of course, is what the U.S. has been war-gaming, scenario-planning for months, but it's not clear how the U.S. would respond.

HARLOW: I wonder, David, what you make. Because given your reporting last week after President Zelenskyy addressed Congress, you said, for all of this talk about victory, it really revealed hints about his worries for the year ahead. And then just a few days later, now we hear from the many Ukrainian foreign minister that they would like a peace summit in February. What does that mean and would Russia even participate? What would that look like?

SANGER: Well, Poppy, it's great that they are looking for a peace summit, because all wars or just about all wars end with a diplomatic solution. But in this case there are many reasons to be a little bit skeptical, if not cynical about the offer.

The first is that his next line, the Ukrainian foreign minister, Kuleba's next line was, and the Russians will have to face war crimes trials. I don't think any of us would doubt that war crimes trials are in order here, but it's hard to imagine the Russians entering a negotiation if that's a requirement.

The Russians have said, we're happy to negotiate anything, but, by the way, we have annexed parts of the territory, the four provinces, so those aren't up for discussion. Well, what do you debate if not the territory and the lines of Ukraine? And, of course, one of the things that the Ukrainians keep saying is that their boundaries have to go back to February 23rd, the day before the war started, which would essentially mean the Russian would have to retreat.

It doesn't seem right now as if either side believes that they have enough of an advantage that either one would really enter serious negotiations.

COLLINS: So, it seems unlikely that you think anything is changing in that sense in the near future, David?

SANGER: Well, I think the Ukrainians think, probably rightly so, that it's better to be in the position, Kaitlan, of offering the talks and making the Russians be the one who didn't show up.

[07:25:06]

At various points, the Russians have said they're open to negotiations, but, of course, not on territory. So, you know, it's one thing to say you're ready for negotiations, it's another thing to have conditions right that both sides are actually willing to come to the table with significant concessions, and I just don't see that right now.

HARLOW: That's key. David Sanger, thank you so much for helping us understand what's happening and what's ahead.

SANGER: Great to be with you.

HARLOW: All right. Next, we're going to take you live to El Paso, Texas, where border agents say they're encountering more than 1,500 migrants a day. We'll be joined by the El Paso County commissioner on how they are dealing with this and what he wants to see from the Biden administration.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Welcome back to CNN This Morning. Coming up for us, travel chaos, thousands of flights again today canceled in the United States, most of them coming from Southwest Airlines.

Plus, New York Congressman-elect George Santos speaking out for the first time admitting to lying about a number of things that he said as he tried to win his election.

[07:30:03]

And the death toll rising in Buffalo, New York, this morning, as it struggles to dig out of a record-breaking storm.