Air travelers faced another day of heavy cancellations and flight delays Wednesday, led by Southwest Airlines cutting 450 flights and another 164 delayed.

With more than 1,300 flights nixed already on Wednesday, according to Flightaware.com, the U.S. air travel industry has now canceled nearly 20,000 flights since Christmas Eve. It’s been a struggle across the industry as winter storm after winter storm followed a surge in COVID-19-related sick calls as carriers such as Delta, United and Fort Worth-based American.

Wednesday flight cancellations are quickly approaching the 1,562 canceled flights the U.S. saw on Tuesday, but well behind the 3,200 flights canceled on Monday.

Wednesday’s cancellations stemmed from new winter weather that emerged late Tuesday and early Wednesday in some of the country’s most important air travel hubs. Denver International Airport had the most cancellations with 229, while Reagan National Airport near Washington, D.C. had 156 cancellations.

Airports in Chicago, Seattle, Newark and Baltimore continued to have a large number of flights canceled with new snow or icy conditions from storms earlier in the week.

Southwest’s 450 cancellations impacted 15% of the carrier’s schedule and another 5% of its flights, 165, are delayed.

Denver, Chicago and Baltimore are three of the biggest air hubs for Southwest Airlines.

Airlines should get some help from a decreasing number of travelers. Some 1.6 million travelers passed through TSA checkpoints at U.S. airports Tuesday, about a third less than the peak just before Christmas. January and February are traditionally lighter travel months for airlines, and even moreso in 2022 with business travel still down significantly from pre-pandemic levels.

There were 26 flight cancellations in and out of Dallas Love Field, mostly flights to Washington, D.C., Chicago and Denver. DFW International Airport, the home hub of American Airlines, had 29 cancellations, mostly to smaller regional airports in the region.

©2022 The Dallas Morning News. Visit dallasnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.