Flight cancellation chaos

• It was a perfect storm of bad weather, IT outages and not enough people to staff flights — as airlines face a surge of travelers.

By the numbers: Spirit was responsible for 80% of all U.S. flight cancellations on Thursday — when it canceled more than half of its schedule, per data from Flight Aware.

• The tally: over 1,700 nixed flights this week, with another 300 canceled as of midday, CNN reports.

What they're saying: "There will still be cancellations over the next few days, but we can start to build back to a full operation," CEO Ted Christie told ABC News.

American Airlines also canceled hundreds of flights this week — fallout from a weekend storm that hit Dallas, its biggest hub.