remember that terrible southwest airlines meltdown over the holidays? that was rough. the department of justice hasn t forgotten either, and just in to cnn the doj is now joining the investigation into that travel mess that left so, so many people stranded. cnn is looking into this, and pete, what does it mean that the doj is now involved sneer. reporter: this is taking an entirely new turn now. we knew the department of transportation was looking into this when it came to refunds and reimbursements for passengers. 16,700 flights canceled over those last few weeks of december, 2023, but now that the doj is looking into this, that is really interesting because it essentially is a whole new layer of this investigation. the department of transportation is speaking on behalf of the
as well as fare differences for people who need to rebook on new flights because of this travel mess. john. john: see how long it takes to get things straightened out. grady, thank you. sandra: sean duffy is here, former wisconsin congressman and elizabeth mcdonald paying a visit. wait a second, the new fbn evening line-up. begins january 23rd. i can t wait. it s awesome. sandra: you and i we all just had this conversation first of all, pete buttigieg, am i wrong to say he should be in front of a microphone giving updates on this situation? he has patrolized travelers coast to coast. go back on paternity vacation, it seems when pete shows up things go wrong. you would think a secretary would have crisis. i go to the microphone and fix the crisis.
adrienne broaddus is at midway airport. yesterday the travel mess was illustrated by the piles of luggage at baggage claim. what s the situation today? reporter: i don t know if you hear the bells going off. it s an indication bags are going to come down. carousel 7 is open. this time yesterday we couldn t walk through the area because it was filled with bags. if you re new to the story check out your screen. you can see what this area looked like for the past several days. the majority of those bags were moved to a secure location on site here at the airport. we are told that the luggage will be transported to its original final destination. it s unclear whether or not the bags will be loaded on to planes going out or if the bags will be shipped. meanwhile, southwest laying out steps for travelers who were impacted to take when it comes to reimbursement. the airline says they don t want
reunite car owners with their cars that were abandoned. we talked about the rows and rows of cars that were lined up on roads. so that was a task for the city to try to tow those to yards. and now owners who had to abandon them have to go and track them down. but in the grand scheme of things, i m sure that is a preferable situation. if it you re leaving with your life, i know there s some grateful people. even if it means a little heart ache trying to find their car. thank you so much for that. so angie, let s talk about a couple things. the forecast today in buffalo and also the potential for severe storms today and kind of a mess out west, what can you tell us? this is all gearing up for the holiday weekend. we ll see a lot of people traveling we talked about the travel mess. let s focus on buffalo. there s some good news when it comes to the temperatures. the bitter cold is moving out. today we re in the mid-40s. this number is well above where it should be for this time of yea
beginning. are we doing this to test to get the health information from people coming from china to see if that variant is something different we need to raise our concern for? if not, why is it being done because we have these tools already in place and immunity has been established. is that the reason, and why aren t they just saying that we are looking for the new variants? that is why we are straining. to help the president with billions of dollars of booster doses mrna at doses that we as taxpayers paid for and send it to china because americans aren t taking it. they are traumatizing the situation. we don t believe you. we don t leave anything. coming up southwest airlines says it might take days to fix the travel mess that has left thousands and thousands of people stranded pretty far from their final destinations. we are live at chicago s midway next.