Holiday travel is mostly nice, but with some naughty disruptions again on Southwest Airlines

Conditions were mostly nice this year for travelers flying ahead of and on Christmas, but some naughty disruptions again plagued those flying with Southwest Airlines. For millions of people traveling over the holiday, this year was much better than last. Christmas morning put a bow on a relatively smooth weekend. By midday Monday, only 138 flights within, into or out of the U.S. had been canceled and 1,366 were delayed, according to the tracking website FlightAware. For this holiday season, U.S. airlines prepared for massive waves of travelers by hiring thousands of pilots, flight attendants and other workers — in an effort to avoid the delays and cancellations that marred travel in 2022, culminating with the Southwest Airlines debacle that stranded more than 2 million people. Still, Southwest experienced hiccups again over the weekend that the airline was looking to clear by Monday. Just 2% of the airline’s flights were canceled Monday, though 12% were delayed, which is 524 flights total, according to FlightAware. On Saturday and Sunday, Southwest canceled 426 flights and delayed 2,689 flights, FlightAware data showed. A Southwest spokesperson blamed the issues on dense fog in Chicago on Saturday and Sunday that prevented planes from landing and...