Major U.S. airlines broadsided by the massive weekend winter storm that swept across large swaths of the country had largely recovered heading into Monday, except for Southwest, where problems have continued to snowball.

Southwest Airlines had the highest number of U.S. cancellations by far on Tuesday with more than 2,650 cancellations reported by tracking service FlightAware. Those flights accounted for more than 84% of the 3,100-plus trips that FlightAware reported as canceled nationwide Tuesday. Also, Southwest announced plans to scrub at least 2,500 flights today and nearly 2,000 for Thursday as it grapples with an operational meltdown, which already has prompted the federal government to announce that it intends to investigate why the company lagged far behind other carriers.

Disruption in Hawaii is less severe compared with various other destinations. Still, FlightAware reported 15 flights were canceled and 55 were delayed Tuesday coming out of Daniel K. Inouye International Airport. Another 19 flights were canceled and 45 delayed Tuesday coming into the Honolulu airport.

>> RELATED: Southwest Airlines flight cancellations continue to snowball

Later on Tuesday a Southwest flight headed for Oakland returned to Honolulu about an hour and 45 minutes into the flight, according to FlightAware. Southwest Flight 2050 took off from Honolulu at around 5 p.m., which was a delay of about two hours from its scheduled takeoff, but the plane turned around and returned at about 8:40 p.m. The airline said the flight came back to Honolulu due to the behavior of customers on board. Customers have been re-booked on the flight for today.

Roger Dela Cruz and Theo Dela Cruz got caught in Southwest’s travel trouble Monday and Tuesday while trying to return to San Jose, Calif., after attending a family funeral in Hawaii.

The Dela Cruzes were booked to fly to San Jose on Monday, but their Southwest flight was delayed and then canceled. On Tuesday their re-booked flight was delayed and then canceled, prompting the family to opt for a flight home today on Hawaiian Airlines.

“This was already a difficult enough trip. I need to get back to work,” said Roger Dela Cruz, who was so exhausted that he was trying to sleep on an airport bench while waiting to collect his luggage. “We’ve requested a refund from Southwest, but we haven’t heard from them.”

Southwest had been holding the Dela Cruzes’ luggage since their original flight Monday. The family recovered half of their luggage from Southwest on Tuesday afternoon but were told that the rest had been sent ahead to San Jose and they would have to retrieve it there. “We were worried that the luggage was lost,” Theo Dela Cruz said. “Now we are worried about finding it in San Jose.”

Joellen and Luke Jantac of North Carolina also were waiting for their luggage at the Honolulu airport after electing to take an earlier Southwest flight from Maui to Honolulu. Joellen Jantac said, “We hopped on to an earlier plane because we had heard about everything that was going on.”

It turned out that the couple had made a good choice as Southwest ended up delaying their original flight. The only negative was that the Jantacs had to wait in Honolulu for their luggage, which had not been transferred from the later flight.

Southwest, which is the largest carrier in 23 of the top 25 travel markets in the U.S., said in a statement Tuesday that it planned to continue reduced operations by flying roughly one-third of its schedule for the next several days.

Southwest has said all customers traveling through Monday are able to re-book in the original class of service or travel standby within 30 days of their original date of travel between the original city-pairs without paying additional charges. Customers can contact Southwest to seek refunds or re-book at Southwest.com/ traveldisruption.

Jessica Lani Rich, president and CEO of the Visitor Aloha Society of Hawaii, a nonprofit that helps visitors in crisis, said the situation underscores reasons why she recommends travel insurance. “Some travelers don’t want to pay the money upfront, but if something happens they will end up paying so much more,” Rich said.

Meanwhile, Hawaii’s visitor industry is reporting mixed impacts tied to the cancellations and delays. Keith Vieira, principal of KV & Associates, said visitors have been worried about Hawaii’s weather since news of injuries due to turbulence on a Hawaiian Airlines flight on Dec. 18 went nationwide. Also, he said people traveling here from the mainland also are worried about their own weather, especially if they live where their pipes are at risk of freezing.

“This is going to exacerbate an already soft festive season,” Vieira said.

Jerry Gibson, president of the Hawaii Hotel Alliance, said since most guests for Hawaii’s festive season arrive around Dec. 23 and stay past New Year’s Day, he’s hopeful that many will miss the worst of the flight disruptions. He said some hotels also are getting requests from guests to extend stays due to the canceled flights. “The carryover guests could offset the cancellations,” Gibson said, but he added that Hawaii’s festive season is expected to remain slow.

Normally, Hawaii is oversold for the holidays, but not this year. It was so slow that the Jantacs’ travel agent managed to book their Dec. 22-31 trip to Maui and Oahu about 24 hours out. “We had planned to go to Peru to visit Machu Picchu but changed plans due to the political unrest,” Luke Jantac said.

Southwest did not give the Honolulu Star-­Advertiser an explanation of why its operations have been more disrupted than other carriers’. American, United, Delta, JetBlue and Hawaiian Airlines on Tuesday had cancellation rates of between zero and 3%.

Alaska Airlines, which serves many cold destinations, canceled about 10% of its flights Tuesday — down from 18% on Monday. On Tuesday, Alaska said in a statement, “Weather conditions in the Pacific Northwest region have improved. … We are still experiencing some cancellations due to out-of-place aircraft and crews caused by winter weather throughout the U.S. Due to the busy holiday week, flight loads are extremely heavy and reaccommodation options are limited.”

Alaska said it has returned more than 1,000 bags to customers since Friday, and on Tuesday planned to ship 1,200 more by way of UPS, courier, freight forwarders and other flights.

Hawaiian Airlines spokesperson Tara Shimooka said the carrier’s operations teams have been working to minimize travel disruptions to guests.

“While we are still experiencing some operational setbacks due to aircraft availability, we’ve taken actions across our network to mitigate these issues by consolidating our neighbor island and Japan schedules, adding flights for guests affected by flight cancellations, and swapping to larger aircraft on some routes,” Shimooka said. “We’ve also issued a travel waiver to allow guests the option to rebook their flight at no additional cost. We understand the impact this has on our guests’ holiday travel plans and sincerely thank them for their understanding and patience during this busy travel period.”

Southwest spokesman Jay McVay said the cancellations grew as storm systems moved across the country, leaving flight crews and planes out of place. “So we’ve been chasing our tails, trying to catch up and get back to normal safely, which is our No. 1 priority, as quickly as we could,” McVay said late Monday at a news conference held in Houston.

Leaders of unions representing Southwest pilots and flight attendants have blamed antiquated crew-­scheduling software and criticized company management. Casey Murray, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, said the airline failed to fix problems that caused a similar meltdown in October 2021.

“There is a lot of frustration because this is so preventable,” Murray said. “The airline cannot connect crews to airplanes. The airline didn’t even know where pilots were at.”

Lyn Montgomery, president of the Transport Workers Union representing Southwest flight attendants, was scheduled to talk Tuesday with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has criticized airlines for previous disruptions and is now taking an interest in Southwest’s woes. “I’m taking it to the highest level — that is how done we are,” said the frustrated Montgomery.

Buttigieg’s office has confirmed that he planned to speak with Montgomery. Additionally, the Transportation Department tweeted Monday that it would examine “Southwest’s unacceptable rate of cancellations” and whether the airline was meeting its legal obligations to stranded customers.

In Congress the Senate Commerce Committee promised an investigation. Two Senate Democrats — Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut — called on Southwest to provide “significant” compensation for stranded travelers, saying that the airline has the money because it plans to pay $428 million in dividends in January.

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The Associated Press contributed to this story.