Southwest hopes to resume normal operations Friday. Can the airline rebound from its historic meltdown?

After days of chaos, canceled flights and stranded travelers, Southwest Airlines said it plans to resume normal operations “with minimal disruptions” Friday.

But it remains unclear how long it will take passengers who spent days in limbo to reach their final destinations, reconnect with luggage or receive compensation for the weeklong meltdown.

“With another holiday weekend full of important connections for our valued customers and employees, we are eager to return to a state of normalcy,” the airline said in a statement Thursday.

Southwest was able to fly only one-third of its normal schedule Thursday, canceling 2,362 flights, according to the flight tracker FlightAware. As of 9:30 a.m. Thursday, 52 Southwest flights originating at Los Angeles International Airport were canceled, along with 54 incoming flights, and dozens more listed as delayed.

But the Dallas-based carrier had canceled fewer than 40 flights scheduled for Friday, less than 1% of its total schedule for the day, according to FlightAware.

The airline has been beset by problems since last week, when a punishing winter storm pummeled much of the country, upsetting travel plans and causing widespread flight disruptions.

Though much of the industry recovered relatively quickly, Southwest remained in turmoil for days.

During the height of cancellations, Southwest gates and terminals at LAX and other area airports were crowded with passengers who showed up for flights they learned were grounded. Many travelers queued up for hours seeking help. By Thursday, the chaos at the terminals seemed to have subsided, though piles of luggage remained at many baggage claims, airport officials said.

The company is the country’s largest low-cost carrier, with routes to various airports in California including Los Angeles, Oakland, Burbank, Sacramento, San Diego and San Jose.

Southwest’s massive disruptions affected thousands of fliers, leaving them stranded at dozens of airports around the country without their luggage or else digging into their pockets to find alternative travel options, prompting a surge in demand for rental cars. The chaos has overwhelmed crews and staff, including pilots, flight attendants and gate agents.

“We know even our deepest apologies — to our customers, to our employees, and to all affected through this disruption — only go so far,” the company’s statement said Thursday. “We have much work ahead of us, including investing in new solutions to manage wide-scale disruptions.”

The airline set up a new webpage for customers to submit refund and reimbursement requests for meals, hotels and alternate transportation, and to connect with baggage.

Southwest has been in overdrive to get its planes back in the air, and mea culpa videos have proliferated on Twitter as the company seeks to soothe customers’ frustrations and maintain what’s left of its reputation. A day after the chief executive apologized to fliers, Chief Commercial OfficerRyan Green doubled down on a pledge that the company “would do everything we can, and work day and night to repair our relationship with you.”

“My personal apology is the first step of making things right after many plans changed and experiences fell short of your expectations of us,” he said.

The airline has canceled at least 13,000 flights — well over 50% of its schedule — since Dec. 22, according to FlightAware.

The devastating winter storm that blasted the country just before Christmas sent holiday plans spinning into chaos. And Southwest’s fiasco was the “perfect storm” of well-known issues, industry experts and union leaders for the company said. They cited the company’s outdated technology and vulnerable operations that are particularly susceptible to any disruptions, much less multiple coast-to-coast weather events.

Experts explained that the U.S. airline giant operates on a unique flight pattern — planes run from destination to destination instead of in and out of certain hubs — that leaves little room for error. It also has no partnerships with other airlines to assist with rebookings, and it operates with few open seats or backup crews. Delays can quickly spiral.

Aggrieved passengers continued to flood Southwest on social media Thursday about missing baggage, issues getting alternative travel reimbursed, and even challenges getting necessary medication.

The crisis has drawn increased pressure from current and former legislators and consumer rights advocates, who are calling on the company to not only help stranded travelers but also to ensure they are adequately reimbursed.

The airline has said it will honor “reasonable requests for reimbursement for meals, hotel, and alternate transportation” for issues from Dec. 24 through Jan. 2. Southwest leaders have also pointed to a number of updates to the company’s websites for affected travelers, including features to allow fliers traveling through Jan. 2 to change their itineraries online, forms to help travelers locate lost luggage and refund requests forms for cancellations or expenses incurred because of the disruptions.

Charlie Leocha, president of the consumer advocacy group Traveler’s United, called Southwest one of the more “honorable airlines,” but said he has questions about the airline’s plans to reimburse travelers for additional expenses beyond their canceled fare.

“I don’t know how that’s going to work, because they said it will be within reason,” Leocha said, suggesting the phrasing is ambiguous and could favor the airline.

In an email, a spokesperson for the airline said Thursday the refunds are being reviewed on a case-by-case basis, and the company is working as quickly as possible to compensate customers. They declined to provide an estimate of how many refunds have been processed so far.

Elaine Chao, the former Transportation secretary under President Trump, told “CNN This Morning” on Thursday that Southwest was once a “paragon” in the aviation industry in part because of its customer and labor relations — all of which “has been put into question,” she said.

“They know they’ve got a lot of work to do to bring back and to build back the loyalty and the trust they used to have with the traveling public,” Chao said. “They are going to be under the scrutiny of regulators, of the administration. They’ve got a lot on their plate.”

Current Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told “Good Morning America” on Wednesday that the massive cancellation crisis “indicates a system failure” and that the agency will be “watching closely” to ensure Southwest meets its customer service commitments. Southwest’s compensation for passengers should cover flights along with meals, lodging and ground transportation because “this is the airline’s responsibility,” he said.

In addition to addressing the immediate harm to the airline’s passengers, public relations and crisis management experts say Southwest needs to work to repair its tarnished reputation.

“Unless they demonstrate to customers that this problem, which is unique to Southwest Airlines, has been solved, the carrier risks this snowballing into a significant issue that will negatively impact the brand in the years to come,” said Eric Rose, a crisis and reputation management expert at the Los Angeles communications firm EKA.