This Feb. 1, 2014, file photo shows a departure information screen at Chicago O'Hare International Airport.(Photo: Nam Y. Huh, AP)


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Southwest Airlines suspended the rest of its Thursday flight schedule at Chicago Midway and most other airlines relaxed rebooking rules as yet another storm made a mess a mess of air travel.


The latest disruption stemmed from a storm that spawned everything from blizzard conditions to rain and tornadoes across the Midwest.


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More than 875 flights had been canceled nationwide and another 4,200 delayed as of 9 p.m. ET, according to FlightAware.


The worst problems were in Chicago, where about 360 combined arrivals and cancellations had been grounded at Chicago O'Hare and about 185 at Chicago Midway.


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As for Southwest, the carrier suspended all of its Chicago Midway flights as conditions deteriorated Thursday afternoon.


"High winds coupled with a rain/snow mix in Chicago created a very low visibility situation today," Southwest spokeswoman Whitney Eichenger said in a Thursday e-mail to Today in the Sky. "Southwest elected to cancel flights after 4 p.m. (local time) today."


Eichenger said Southwest hoped to fly a near-normal schedule in Chicago on Friday.


"We're watching the weather closely and will know more about Chicago operations tomorrow morning," Eichenger said. "Right now, we are planning to operate our full schedule and see little weather impact for Chicago" for Friday.


Midway is the busiest airport in the Southwest's network and the airline is by far the largest carrier there, meaning its suspension of service left the airport with a sparse flight schedule for the rest of Thursday.


Across town at O'Hare, a hub for American and United, The Associated Press noted that about one in 10 flights had been canceled as of 5 p.m. ET and another one in four were running late.


Overall, Southwest and subsidiary AirTran had canceled more than 205 flights across the nation as of 9 p.m, ET.


Minneapolis/St. Paul – a hub for Delta – also was hard hit, with more than 160 cancellations as of the same time. That represented about 10% of the airport's entire Thursday flight schedule, according to FlightAware.


Southwest's 200-plus cancellations were the highest among any single air carrier. But hundreds of cancellations were spread out among the regional affiliates that fly feeder flights for American, Delta, United and US Airways.


Those regional carriers combined more than 400 cancellations as of 9 p.m. ET. Those cancellations were pooled from a number of regional affiliates, including SkyWest, ExpressJet, American Eagle, Chautauqua, Shuttle America, Trans States, Mesa and Compass.


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