An overall smooth weekend of holiday travel ran into a hiccup as dense fog made it harder for flights to reach Chicago’s Midway International Airport before Christmas Eve on.wsj.com/48uMVFD on.wsj.com/48uMVFD

.@petemuntean: "Well, the interesting thing here is that the $140 million fine, $90 million of that goes to @SouthwestAir passengers for future cancellations and delays in the terms of vouchers. $35 million goes directly to the federal government. Let's look back a year ago. We're almost on the one-year anniversary of when this meltdown really kicked off. Dec. 21, 2022. It lasted 10 days, 16,900 flights canceled. We're talking 2 million people left in the lurch. The Department of Transportation imposed this fine because of serious lapses in consumer protections. They say that Southwest Airlines did not adequately communicate with passengers, did not provide them the best customer service, and did not get them refunds quick enough, even though Southwest has already refunded and reimbursed passengers through the tune of $600 million."

.@USDOT @SecretaryPete on @SquawkCNBC: "Today's announcement is a big penalty and enforcement action related to failures that took place a year ago. But I would also say that over the course of the last year, we've seen much better outcomes than we had a year or a year and a half ago. I think a lot of that has to do with the pressure that we put on airlines, and a lot of it also is the airlines should be credited for stepping up in response to that pressure. This year we saw some of the biggest travel days ever. Matter of fact, the day after, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, that was the most passengers to board airplanes in the United States of America, in our history. And the cancellation rate was less than one half of one percent. Part of it is that weather was better on certain key days. Then again, we went through some storms, and the big problem we had a year and a half ago was even on blue sky days, there were breakdowns, delays, cancellations, that kind of thing. So this is really, I think, reflecting that there has been real improvement over the last year. But part of what we saw with the Southwest breakdown a year ago was that it's not just about the weather. The entire system, if you remember where we were, right around Christmas 2022, the whole system got clobbered by this major winter storm. But then all of the other airlines got back on their feet quickly. Southwest was a different story, and this is about accountability and frankly changing the incentives for airlines to make sure that that can't happen again."

.@USDOT @SecretaryPete on @SquawkCNBC: "Today's announcement is a big penalty and enforcement action related to failures that took place a year ago. But I would also say that over the course of the last year, we've seen much better outcomes than we had a year or a year and a half ago. I think a lot of that has to do with the pressure that we put on airlines, and a lot of it also is the airlines should be credited for stepping up in response to that pressure. This year we saw some of the biggest travel days ever. Matter of fact, the day after, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, that was the most passengers to board airplanes in the United States of America, in our history. And the cancellation rate was less than one half of one percent. Part of it is that weather was better on certain key days. Then again, we went through some storms, and the big problem we had a year and a half ago was even on blue sky days, there were breakdowns, delays, cancellations, that kind of thing. So this is really, I think, reflecting that there has been real improvement over the last year. But part of what we saw with the Southwest breakdown a year ago was that it's not just about the weather. The entire system, if you remember where we were, right around Christmas 2022, the whole system got clobbered by this major winter storm. But then all of the other airlines got back on their feet quickly. Southwest was a different story, and this is about accountability and frankly changing the incentives for airlines to make sure that that can't happen again."

.@tomcostellonbc @TODAYshow: "I just checked on the @flightaware MiseryMap, not a lot of misery if you're flying today. Really good flying conditions. We expect 115 million people to be flying or driving over the extended Christmas break. Keep in mind, people are working remotely on the front side and the back side. So the entire getaway period is much, much longer. But if you did fly @SouthwestAir over last Christmas, if you had that terrible experience, you may still have some PTSD."