Southwest Airlines to resume flights on Friday
2022.12.29 14:20
Southwest Airlines to resume flights on Friday
Budrigannews.com – After days of operating at a third of its usual capacity as a result of disruptions brought on by a massive winter storm that swept through much of the United States around the Christmas holiday, Southwest Airlines Co. stated that it intends to return to normal operations on Friday.
During the holiday weekend, thousands of flights were canceled by U.S. airlines as a result of the storm; however, Southwest’s issues grew worse while other airlines mostly recovered.
According to airline data tracker FlightAware, the airline had 2,357 canceled flights on Thursday, or 58% more than other airlines.
In a statement, Southwest stated that it hoped to resume normal flight schedules on Friday and was eager to do so in time for the New Year’s holiday weekend.
Since last Friday, the airline has canceled more than 16,000 flights, and U.S. Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on Wednesday that Southwest’s problems were more than just caused by the weather and pointed to a “system failure.”
Southwest’s management, according to employee unions, was warned for years that the company’s technology systems required urgent upgrades.
According to Lyn Montgomery, president of Southwest Airlines (NYSE:), flight attendants have been complaining about technological issues at the airline for a number of years. Local 556 of the Transport Workers Union is the Flight Attendants Union.
She stated that the issue has been brought up repeatedly by the union leadership, including during contract negotiations since 2018. She added that one sign read, “Picket line loading, Southwest Airlines technology failure” on a picket line on Sept. 27.
“There’s many ways it could have been avoided,” Montgomery said on CNN on Thursday, referring to Southwest executives’ pledges to ensure that the company’s IT infrastructure could accommodate expansion.
The remarks were similar to those of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, which stated that despite years of union demands for improvements, leadership had failed to adapt operations to address repeated system failures.
“This problem began many years ago, when the complexity of our network outgrew its ability to withstand meteorological and technological disruptions,” it said in a statement on Wednesday. “The holiday meltdown has been blamed on weather that had been forecast five days prior.”
Changes to crew scheduling software and communication tools that would have allowed displaced crews to stay in touch with the company were among the suggestions it made.
Officials at the company acknowledged that internal logistics and scheduling systems’ inability to recover from widespread storm disruptions partly accounts for the current issues.
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Southwest stated on Thursday, “We have much work ahead of us, including investing in new solutions to manage large-scale disruptions.”
This week, top executives offered their apologies to customers and promised to address the problems that caused the disruptions.
“All the flexibility and planning that we put in place to deal with the storm just wasn’t enough,” the airline’s chief commercial officer, Ryan Green, stated in a statement.
“Double down on our already existing plans to upgrade systems for these extreme circumstances so that we never again face what’s happening right now,” Southwest CEO Bob Jordan stated.
The Washington Post reported that an internal memo from Southwest on December 21 mentioned a shortage of workers in Denver, where the winter storm severely affected Southwest’s significant operations.
The large number of Southwest flights that have been canceled or delayed recently is the subject of an investigation by the U.S. Transportation Department to determine whether or not the airline was at fault.
