Southwest Airlines flew stranded travelers out of Houston for free


Catastrophic flooding from Hurricane Harvey has put most of Houston's non-boat transportation options at a standstill, Houston Hobby Airport included. Hundreds of travelers were stranded at the airport over the weekend after the storm grounded all flights, but about 500 passengers made it out Sunday night when Southwest Airlines conducted five emergency rescue flights to Dallas.
Southwest is the primary airline operating out of Houston Hobby, the city's smaller of two commercial airports. The airline loaded customers into five of its stranded Boeing 737s and flew out Sunday evening, making sure to depart before sunset as the airport had no functional runway lights to guide takeoff.
Southwest still has 10 planes on the ground at Houston Hobby, but a tweeted announcement Sunday evening suggested more humanitarian flights would not be possible Monday and Tuesday. It is unclear how many travelers remain stranded at the airport, or when normal commercial flights will resume.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
-
'There will be a market incentive to build wind and solar anyway'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Geoff Dyer's 6 favorite books about the realities of war
Feature The award-winning author recommends works by Ernie Pyle, Michael Herr, and more
-
Book review: 'A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck'
Feature A couple works to keep their marriage together while lost at sea
-
CBS cancels Colbert's 'Late Show'
Speed Read 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' is ending next year
-
Shakespeare not an absent spouse, study proposes
speed read A letter fragment suggests that the Shakespeares lived together all along, says scholar Matthew Steggle
-
New Mexico to investigate death of Gene Hackman, wife
speed read The Oscar-winning actor and his wife Betsy Arakawa were found dead in their home with no signs of foul play
-
Giant schnauzer wins top prize at Westminster show
Speed Read Monty won best in show at the 149th Westminster Kennel Club dog show
-
Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar take top Grammys
Speed Read Beyoncé took home album of the year for 'Cowboy Carter' and Kendrick Lamar's diss track 'Not Like Us' won five awards
-
The Louvre is giving 'Mona Lisa' her own room
Speed Read The world's most-visited art museum is getting a major renovation
-
Honda and Nissan in merger talks
Speed Read The companies are currently Japan's second and third-biggest automakers, respectively
-
Taylor Swift wraps up record-shattering Eras tour
Speed Read The pop star finally ended her long-running tour in Vancouver, Canada