Southwest will ‘never again’ face nationwide operational meltdown: CEO

Southwest Airlines CE Bob Jordan spoke publicly for the first time about the company’s widespread operational difficulties during the busy end-of-year holiday travel period, promising that the airline’s passengers and employees will “never again face what’s happening right now”. “Cities with large numbers of scheduled flights simultaneously froze as record bitter cold brought challenges for all airlines,” Jordan said in a 27 December video posted to the airline’s website and on social media. “Our network is highly complex, and the operation of the airline counts on all the pieces – especially aircraft and crews – remaining in motion.” As a result of the winter storm that pummelled much of the Midwest and Northeast USA over the weekend, Southwest’s fleet and crews were out of position “in dozens of locations”, he said. “We reached a decision point to significantly reduce our flying to catch up.”<br/>The airline was forced to cancel and delay thousands of flights across its network. As of 16:45 Pacific Time on 27 December, Southwest had cancelled 2,666 flights and delayed a further 943, according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware.com. The airline has also pre-emptively cancelled more than 4,200 flights in the coming two days, so far. The Southwest Airlines Pilot Association says the airline’s antiquated scheduling software is largely to blame for the operational failures, which have resulted in parked aircraft and stranded thousands of Southwest flight crews and hundreds of thousands of holiday air travelers.<br/>