Winter weather over the holiday weekend led to a meltdown at Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV), with the discounter forced to cancel a sizable portion of its total flight schedule and leave millions of travelers stranded. On Tuesday, investors headed for the emergency exits, sending shares of Southwest down as much as 9%.

Winter storms and busy travel weekends are never a good mix for the airline industry, but one carrier stood out as the clear Grinch. Southwest was forced to cancel more than 30% of its flights per day over the weekend.

While other airlines were getting back to normal on Tuesday, Southwest said it was cancelling more than two-thirds of today's schedule and planned to operate at a reduced schedule through Thursday as it works to get flight crews and airplanes back into their normal rotation.

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Source Fool.com