Southwest Airlines , Posts Massive Loss , After Holiday Meltdown.br NBC reports that Southwest Airlines br has reported a $220 million loss for the br fourth quarter following a holiday meltdown. .br The holiday incident drove up expenses for the air carrier br and cost the company millions in revenue in what was br predicted to be the busiest travel season since 2020.br Earlier this month, Southwest announced br that it had canceled about 16,700 flights br between December 21 and 31. .br According to Southwest spokesman br Jay McVay, cancellations snowballed br as storms moved across the U.S.br So we’ve been chasing our tails, br trying to catch up and get backbr to normal safely, which is our br No. 1 priority, as quickly as we could. br And that’s exactly how we br ended up where we are today, Scott Mayerowitz, executive editor of The Points Guy travel site, via NBC.br So we’ve been chasing our tails, br trying to catch up and get backbr to normal safely, which is our br No. 1 priority, as quickly as we could. br And that’s exactly how we br ended up where we are today, Scott Mayerowitz, executive editor of The Points Guy travel site, via NBC.br When bad weather hits, and you have br staffing issues like they did, it creates br a situation that is near impossible to br recover from, and it couldn’t have br happened during a worse possible week, Scott Mayerowitz, executive editor of The Points Guy travel site, via NBC.br When bad weather hits, and you have br staffing issues like they did, it creates br a situation that is near impossible to br recover from, and it couldn’t have br happened during a worse possible week, Scott Mayerowitz, executive editor of The Points Guy travel site, via NBC.br The cancellations, which were caused br by severe winter weather across the U.S., br hit Southwest's pretax results by $800 million. .br NBC reports that following br the release of the results, shares in Southwest br went down about 3 in premarket trading.