Similar to this month’s service mayhem, Southwest fared far worse than its competitors last October. It has admitted it was having service problems caused by short staffing even before the thousands of canceled flights stranded hundreds of thousands of passengers. Southwest blamed that service meltdown on a combination of bad weather in Florida, a brief problem with air traffic control in the area and a lack of available staff to adjust to those problems. In October 2021, Southwest canceled more than 2,000 flights over a four-day period, costing the airline $75 million. If this is all ringing a bell, that’s because this isn’t the first time Southwest’s service melted down in epic fashion. To recover, Jordan told the Wall Street Journal the company plans to operate just over a third of its schedule in upcoming days to give itself the ability for crews to get into the right positions. “The Department will examine whether cancellations were controllable and if Southwest is complying with its customer service plan.” “USDOT is concerned by Southwest’s unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays & reports of lack of prompt customer service,” the agency tweeted. The US Department of Transportation said it is investigating. He said the airline is “committed to and invested in” improving its systems, but “we need to be able to produce solutions faster.” “We’ve talked an awful lot about modernizing the operation, and the need to do that.” “Part of what we’re suffering is a lack of tools,” Jordan told employees. and promised the company will invest in better systems. Southwest CEO Bob Jordan, in a message to employees obtained by CNN, acknowledged many of Murray’s concerns. “It’s phones, it’s computers, it’s processing power, it’s the programs used to connect us to airplanes - that’s where the problem lies, and it’s systemic throughout the whole airline,” he said. He said the airline’s operations haven’t changed much since the 1990s. “We’ve seen these sorts of meltdowns occur on a much more regular basis and it really just has to do with outdated processes and outdated IT.” “We’ve been having these issues for the past 20 months,” he told CNN. The problems Southwest faces have been brewing for a long time, said Captain Casey Murray, the president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association. “They’re just not manned with enough manpower in order to give the scheduling changes to flight attendants, and that’s created a ripple effect that is creating chaos throughout the nation.” “The phone system the company uses is just not working,” Lyn Montgomery, President of TWU Local 556, told CNN. Stranded customers have been unable to get through to Southwest’s customer service lines to rebook flights or find lost baggage.Įmployees also said they have not been able to communicate with the airline, the president of the union that represents Southwest’s Flight Attendants told CNN Monday. “Those turnaround times bog things down,” Bangs said. Southwest’s schedule includes shorter flights with tighter turnaround times, which are causing some of the problems, Kathleen Bangs, a FlightAware spokesperson, told CNN.
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