DALLAS (AP) Southwest Airlines said it expects to return to normal operations Friday after more than a week of widespread flight cancellations that started with a winter storm and spiraled out of control because of a breakdown with staffing technology.

If Thursday turns out to be the last day of the Southwest crisis, it will be marked by about 2,350 canceled flights, nearly 60% of the airlines schedule.

Southwest declined to say how many people have been affected, but it is likely that far more than 1 million have had a flight canceled.

The airline has scrapped more than 13,000 flights since Dec. 22, according to tracking service FlightAware. Its planes have 143 to 175 seats and were likely nearly fully booked around the Christmas and New Years holidays.

Airline executives said that crew-scheduling technology a major cause of the meltdown has caught up with the backlog of pilots and flight attendants stranded in wrong locations. Southwest operated 1,600 flights on Thursday, including 104 that carried no passengers but instead served to put planes and crews in position for full operations on Friday.

Southwest leaders believe they will have enough empty seats over the next several days to accommodate any stranded passengers still wishing to fly on the airline while conceding that many had either given up or found other transportation.