Southwest says it plans to 'return to normal' Friday after canceling thousands of flights

Southwest Airlines said it plans on returning to "normal operations" Friday after canceling about two-thirds of its flights so far this week. 

The airline's technology was apparently unable to catch up after Winter Storm Elliott swept the country over Christmas weekend.

"We are encouraged by the progress we've made to realign Crew, their schedules, and our fleet," Southwest said Thursday.

More than 1 million travelers may have been affected by Southwest's cancellations, The Associated Press reported. The airline has canceled more than 13,000 flights since Dec. 22. 

Southwest still canceled more than 2,300 flights on Thursday, according to FlightAware, but their chancellation rate was at 58%, which is slightly better than the past several days.

"We have much work ahead of us, including investing in new solutions to manage wide-scale disruptions," the airline said. 

Technology problems reportedly resulted in the company being unaware of where their own employees were even located as staff spent up to 17 hours on hold waiting for support.