Southwest Airlines is testing a software fix it developed after the Christmas travel meltdown

Southwest Airlines said it is testing software fixes that the company developed after its Christmas travel meltdown, as the airline faces multiple federal investigations. The software fixes are an “upgrade,” rather than a replacement of the crew scheduling system, Southwest executives said on a conference call with reporters Thursday. The airline and its employees have said the scheduling software left the company unable to recover from winter storms on some of the busiest travel days of the year and caused it to cancel more than 16,700 flights between December 21 and 29, roughly half its schedule during that period. The company decided to keep the underlying software system because it “generally worked as designed” even during the meltdown, CEO Bob Jordan said. The software’s shortcoming, he said, is “solving past problems.” The company is currently testing the software and expects to begin using it “in a few weeks’ time.” Southwest’s cancellations dwarfed other airlines during the Christmas storm because crew members had to call in to the airline, rather than notify the company electronically, to let them know of their availability. “That was a problem,” said Andrew Watterston, Southwest’s chief operating officer Thursday. “It wasn’t the problem for the situation. It was a symptom of the problem.”<br/>