For Southwest Airlines, the Christmas 2022 travel period was a couple of weeks that will live in infamy for some time yet. The so-called Southwest holiday travel meltdown saw nearly 17,000 flights canceled last December over 10 days during the busiest time of year for air travel.
Factoring in delays, we’re talking more than 20,000 flight disruptions that they carrier blamed on a combination of winter storm conditions, staffing shortages, and an outdated IT infrastructure it used for assigning and reassigning flight crews. The resulting fallout was so epic that the federal Department of Transportation (DOT) has threatened to hit Southwest with a hefty fine for failing its customers.
Southwest doesn’t deny that it fell extremely short of its service promise during the days in question. What it did do was formulate and put into motion a Travel Disruption Action Plan. The carrier hired respected aviation consultancy Oliver Wyman to conduct operational assessments and is reportedly investing $1.3 billion to fix its various problems.
Canceled flights (photo courtesy Mimadeo/iStock/. Plus)
Having identified that the key root causes of the meltdown were an insufficiency of winter infrastructure and equipment, the need to manually process crew scheduling changes and gaps in communication between operational workgroups, Southwest set about addressing these weaknesses immediately and throughout 2023.
“The disruption was triggered by an unprecedented storm that simultaneously hit several of our most critical stations, but there were many causes, not just one, that led to it,” Southwest’s Chief Operating Officer, Andrew Watterson, said during an October earnings call. “We are now so much better prepared for these extreme weather events,” he added, according to USA Today.
Having made significant investments to improve its resiliency when it next encounters such challenges, the airline now believes itself to be ready for the winter season. On its website, Southwest outlines its progress in addressing the issues that caused last Christmas’ meltdown under three categories: improving winter operations, enhancing cross-team collaboration and accelerating operational investments.
PHOTO: Aircraft during taxiing during heavy snow. (photo via Alexey_Lesik / iStock / . Plus)
While one Southwest pilot and union leader recently warned that such a calamitous streak of flight disruptions could occur again this holiday season, saying he doesn’t believe the airline is ready for another troublesome winter, travelers appear willing to give the airline another shot. That may be, in part, due to the goodwill gestures shown toward impacted customers—sending out apologies, gifting 25,000 Rapid Rewards points, and offering reimbursements for related expenses, like meals, hotel accommodations and alternate transportation.
Whatever the reason, this holiday season’s travelers seem to be willing to forgive and forget. Ryan Green, Southwest’s Chief Commercial Officer, said during the aforementioned earnings call:“We have higher booked load factors for the December holiday period this year than we had at the same point last year, which indicates to me we’re not experiencing significant book away as a result of last year’s operational disruption.”
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