A Southwest passenger and her cat were stranded for 4 days over the holidays and spent another $600 to get home, report says

• A Southwest passenger spent $600 and 4 days trying to get home after the airline's holiday meltdown.
• Olivia Laskowski couldn't get another Southwest flight for more than two weeks, per New York Times.

A Southwest passenger and her cat were stranded for four days over the holidays following Southwest's meltdown, a report says.

The New York Times reported that Olivia Laskowski was due to fly from Nashville to New York on December 27 when she received a text message from Southwest the night before saying her flight was canceled.

Laskowski, who was travelling with her pet Siamese cat Pretzel, found that the earliest she could book a new flight with the airline was January 11. She was forced instead to spend $478 to fly with JetBlue, which included a $125 charge for Pretzel.

The JetBlue flight got her back to Brooklyn on December 30, per The Times – four days later than planned.

Laskowski was one of the passengers who received 25,000 frequent flyer points, valued at more than $300, the newspaper reported. She was also told she would get a refund, but was unsure about further compensation from the airline.

"Sometimes you get extra expenses in life and you just kind of brush them off and they are what they are," Laskowski told The Times.

"But it's the type of money that I'd really like to get back because as a young person that lives in probably the most expensive city in the country, $600 does make a big difference to me."

Southwest expects to take a hit of about $825 million in lost revenue, passenger reimbursements, and other costs from the chaos.

Southwest didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.