Will Southwest Airlines have a better weekend? Here’s what we know
After thousands of canceled flights every day this week, Southwest cancellations are slated to drop significantly by Friday.
More than 2,300 flights were canceled Thursday, but the airline’s outlook was looking up for the weekend. The airline canceled 39 flights for Friday and zero flights for Saturday, according to flight tracker Flight Aware.
“We plan to return to normal operations with minimal disruptions on Friday, Dec. 30,” Southwest officials said in a statement Thursday. “We are encouraged by the progress we’ve made to realign Crew, their schedules, and our fleet. With another holiday weekend full of important connections for our valued Customers and Employees, we are eager to return to a state of normalcy.”
Even as Southwest starts to regain its footing, holiday travelers are looking for lost luggage and counting the dollars spent on alternate transportation and changed plans. And two congressman are calling for Southwest to invest cash into fixing its issues.
Southwest’s Chief Commercial Officer Ryan Green apologized on behalf of the airline in a video message Wednesday and let travelers know about online customer service options.
A travel disruption page on Southwest’s website gives instructions on how to rebook flights, request a refund and submit information about lost luggage.
“We’re continuing to work to make this up to you and you’ll hear more about that soon,” Green said. “But for now, we’re focused on restoring the reliability and level of customer experience we expect of ourselves and that you expect from us.”
An official confirmed to the Star-Telegram on Monday that travelers whose flights were canceled may request a full refund from the airline or a flight credit which won’t expire.
Things started to go wrong for Southwest during the winter storm that rolled across most of the country late last week and through Christmas.
On Dec. 21, the airlines said it had canceled about 500 flights out of its 8,000 for Thursday and Friday. The cancellations continued into the weekend with 1,635 cancellations on Christmas Day.
Southwest officials initially blamed the cancellations on challenges from last week’s winter storm, but one airline analyst told the Star-Telegram that Southwest had probably miscalculated the burden it had put on its employees.
”You have an industry running on reserve for a long time,” said Robert Mann of R.W. Mann & Co in New York. He added that the industry saw major problems over the summer and wanted to avoid the same during the holidays.
“I think it is a cultural issue,” Mann said. ”It’s a combination of a longtime push on mandatory overtime and then you throw in the weather and it’s a confluence of things,” that led to the meltdown.
Texas congressmen urge Southwest to upgrade
Other experts also pointed to Southwest’s outdated technology as a significant contributor to the chaos.
Even though the current crisis could be resolved this weekend, future collapses could be avoided if Southwest takes remedial action, according to two North Texas congressmen.
Colin Allred (D-TX-32), a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Jake Ellzey (R-TX-06), a former Southwest pilot, met Wednesday with three unions representing Southwest Airlines workers.
In a joint statement issued Thursday, the congressmen called the travel disruption “predictable and preventable,” saying that “for some time Southwest has run unacceptable risks and tried to get by with an unacceptably thin margin of error — both in staffing and in technology.”
“The payment of hundreds of millions in dividends to shareholders and a healthy profit through the first three quarters of this year clearly show that Southwest can afford to address the issues at hand but has chosen not to,” the statement said. “While businesses should strive to maximize profits, it should never be at the expense of their customers. Through mismanagement, failed infrastructure and poor planning Southwest neglected the people who keep them in business.”
Southwest recently announced it would reinstate its quarterly dividend for the first time since the pandemic started and will pay out approximately $428 Million at the end of January.
On Tuesday and Wednesday Southwest’s stock was down by 5% for the second day in a row but it rebounded Thursday to nearly 4%.
And the U.S. Department of Transportation had called for a probe of the airline just two days ago after its problems caused nationwide travel disruption.
This story was originally published December 29, 2022 at 12:44 PM.
