Travelers wait at a Southwest Airlines baggage counter to retrieve their bags after canceled flights at Los Angeles International Airport, Monday, Dec. 26, 2022, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Eugene Garcia)

(AP) – The U.S. Department of Transportation says it will look into flight cancellations by Southwest Airlines that have left travelers stranded at airports across the country amid an intense winter storm that has killed dozens of people. Many airlines were forced to cancel flights due to the weather, but Southwest was by far the most affected. About 4,000 domestic U.S. flights were cancelled Monday, according to the tracking website FlightAware. About 2,900 of those were Southwest’s. A Southwest spokesman says cancellations snowballed as the storm moved from the eastern to the western U.S., leaving flight crews and planes out of place.