Southwest trims flights again to manage staffing crunch

Southwest said mass flight cancellations and delays that disrupted travel for tens of thousands of customers earlier this month cost it $75 million and that it plans to further trim its schedule. The airline on Thursday cut its December capacity to 92% of what it flew in the same month of 2019, down from a plan to fly 95% of its schedule two years ago. Southwest canceled more than 2,000 flights between Oct. 8 and Oct. 13. It blamed the meltdown on bad weather in Florida and air traffic control issues, which was compounded by staffing shortages. Its closest rivals, including those in Florida, had relatively minimal cancellations. On Oct. 8 in Orlando, one of the airports that Southwest highlighted as an issue in an customer apology, the airline had canceled more than a third of its scheduled departures, while American Airlines canceled 16% of its departures and Spirit Airlines scrapped 6%, according to aviation consulting firm Cirium. The revenue hit, announced in quarterly results, came from flight cancellations, customer refunds and “gestures of goodwill,” Southwest said. CEO Gary Kelly said in an earnings release that the airline’s 2022 schedule “reflects more conservative staffing assumptions, as well, all compared to historical norms.” The airline reported a Q3 profit of $446m on Thursday compared with a $1.6b loss year earlier, thanks to a boost from federal aid and voluntary leaves of absence by employees. Southwest’s revenue rose to $4.68b in the quarter up from $1.79b in Q3 of last year. “Our active (versus inactive) and available staffing fell below plan and, along with other factors, caused us to miss our operational ontime performance targets, and that created additional cost headwinds,” Kelly said. That along with a surge in Covid-19 cases led to a revenue hit of $300m, he said.<br/>