Southwest’s weather debacle can never happen again. Too many DFW travelers depend on it | Opinion

Even as airline debacles go — and there have been plenty — Southwest Airlines’ performance over the holidays was terrible.

As severe weather and bone-chilling temperatures blasted a swath of the country at the end of December, other airlines seemed to be able to rearrange flights. Southwest, vital to Fort Worth and Dallas travelers’ needs, canceled upwards of 15,000 flights, leaving people stranded, their vacations or holiday time with loved ones lost and in one case, causing a bride to miss her own destination wedding.

So far, at least one disgruntled passenger has sued Southwest for breach of contract, after his and his daughter’s flight was canceled. The suit claims he is deserving of more than just airline points, but a full refund, which Southwest has so far refused to provide.

Even into the New Year, Southwest still canceled around 200 flights Jan. 2, supposedly due to bad weather, adding even more cancellations to a harried roster.

Part of the issue lies with Southwest’s outdated technology. Worse, employees have been warning about the issue for years. While other airlines operate with state-of-the-art cloud-based technology, Southwest uses a phone-based system for crews to learn their assignments. With so many cancellations, the system was overwhelmed, airline officials say.

Another issue that halted Southwest’s ability to operate smoothly is partially due to its point-to-point setup that ensures fares are cheap and often trims travel times because customers don’t have to travel from point A to point B via a major hub. The downside is that in bad weather, when multiple cancellations occur, there’s no standby crew at a major hub to pick up the domino piece and keep the additional flights from being canceled.

Southwest also doesn’t have a policy under which it will help passengers book flights on competitors’ planes when such delays or cancellations occur. Perhaps the company may need to reconsider this, even though it would make tickets more expensive.

Southwest is the largest airline in 23 of the top 25 travel markets in the U.S. It still operates on a different vibe than other airlines, on everything from scheduling to seating. But it’s no longer the plucky startup flying short runs, often fueled by wild fare sales. Its unusual rise gave it a loyal following, but now, it’s a vital piece of our travel system, and it’s got to focus on two priorities: making things right for customers and preventing another similar disaster.

An August 2021 survey showed that one-quarter of Americans consider themselves loyal to Southwest. Their closest competition was Delta, at 22 percent. But we also know that even when people love a company, as many as 32% of all “customers would stop doing business with a brand they loved after one bad experience.” That number increases to 59% after several bad experiences. In other words, Southwest may begin to actually lose customers if they don’t make some changes.

The airline’s offer to compensate customers with 25,000 extra frequent flier miles is fine, as far as it goes. But people who had to stay in hotels, rent cars or book on other airlines should be made whole. Southwest CEO Bob Jordan said Tuesday during a “Good Morning America” interview that the company will be “taking care of things like rental cars, hotel rooms, meals, booking customers on other airlines,” and we hope that happens. The airline said Friday that the disruptions could cost it up to $825 million.

It’s true that an airline ticket generally constitutes a contract that the carrier is not responsible for weather disruptions, but this one was clearly made worse by Southwest’s own mistakes, some years in the making, and must be handled differently.

Southwest needs to consider adding backup crews to smaller hub cities, at least when bad weather is imminent. And the airline definitely needs to overhaul its technology — it simply can’t afford not to at this point.

While no one asks airlines to control the weather, customers do expect them to be able to quickly recover from it. Since this disaster was so specific to Southwest, it must step up and make changes before its business plummets.