After thousands of cancelations, how can Southwest Airlines regain trust?
TAMPA, Fla. - The recent weather system impacted air travel in nearly every part of the country, and many airlines are trying to dig out from an avalanche of cancelations and delays – especially Southwest Airlines.
The airline canceled 5,500 flights over the past two days and is expected to scrub another 2,500 Wednesday, essentially clearing everything out, so they can start over.
Mohammed Aljaberi spent 36 hours flying from Omaha to St. Louis to Orlando and then driving to Tampa.
"We didn't go to the house, we came [to TPA] to ask about our luggage," he said. "It's a nightmare. If it was just me, it would be okay, but I have three kids. Twelve, ten and five years old. They were excited to come here."
Airline consultant RW Mann said it seems that employees who had already done months of mandatory overtime were sick of it and no-showed.
"It's uniquely a Southwest phenomenon," said Mann. "Every airline has had the same weather, the same cold temperatures, and faced the same high holiday demand."
Southwest Airlines accounts for 90% of the canceled flights seen during the travel nightmare over the holiday weekend. They canceled around 2,900 flights Monday, 2,600 Tuesday and have already blown out 2,500 for Wednesday.
Many airports have scenes similar to Tampa, where bags but no owners abound. Southwest is freezing all bookings until January 1.
"You first have to reestablish a schedule the airline can fly, which includes having crew members who can serve that schedule," said Mann.
In the long term, he said they'll have to incentivize crew members to travel to meet planes on their days off and build a computer network that more accurately tracks where planes and people are.
"It's a problem to the brand," said Mann. "It'll be a financial problem to the company, it won't be a footnote in some future fourth quarter report. It'll be an actual item."
When it comes to the brand, Aljaberi has another tip: Get frontline employees' information that feels more useful.
"Nothing personal, but it seems like something happened, and they don't want to tell you," he said.
Southwest released the following statement:
"With consecutive days of extreme winter weather across our network behind us, continuing challenges are impacting our Customers and Employees in a significant way that is unacceptable.
And our heartfelt apologies for this are just beginning.
We're working with Safety at the forefront to urgently address wide-scale disruption by rebalancing the airline and repositioning Crews and our fleet ultimately to best serve all who plan to travel with us.
We were fully staffed and prepared for the approaching holiday weekend when the severe weather swept across the continent, where Southwest is the largest carrier in 23 of the top 25 travel markets in the U.S. These operational conditions forced daily changes of an unprecedented volume and magnitude to our flight schedule and the tools our teams use to recover the airline remain at capacity.
This safety-first work is intentional, ongoing, and necessary to return to normal reliability, one that minimizes last-minute inconveniences. As we continue the work to recover our operation, we have made the decision to continue operating a reduced schedule by flying roughly one third of our schedule for the next several days. And we're working to reach Customers whose travel plans will change to offer specific information and available options, also available at Southwest.com/traveldisruption.
Our Employees and Crews scheduled to work this holiday season are showing up in every single way. We are beyond grateful for that. Our shared goal is to take care of every single Customer with the Hospitality and Heart for which we're known.
On the other side of this, we'll work to make things right for those we've let down, including our Employees.
With no concern higher than ultimate Safety, the People of Southwest share a goal to take care of each and every Customer. We recognize falling short and sincerely apologize."