Southwest demands fixes for bugs in $500m booking upgrade

Southwest is pushing its supplier to fix customer service problems that emerged following a $500m upgrade of its outdated reservations system. The carrier is leaning on Amadeus IT to resolve issues with its Altea program that replaced Southwest’s 30-year-old, mostly home-grown technology. There have been at least five technical outages since August, with most of those blocking passengers from accessing the airline’s website to check in or manage reservations. “This is not something we’re casually taking and saying, ‘Oh it will be fine. Don’t worry about it.’ It’s something that we’re actively working,” Southwest president Tom Nealon said. While the problems aren’t widespread and don’t constitute a crisis at this point, he said, “it’s a hassle and it’s frustrating.” The carrier prepared three years for the transition -- its biggest technology update ever. Though the final switch to the new system was made in May, Southwest began using some of the new tools to book customers as far back as December 2016. A Southwest executive moved up a planned visit with Amadeus to January from February, with the service interruptions “on top of the agenda,” Nealon said. “The support structures and the support processes are, honestly, still being worked and reworked because we’re finding some things we weren’t catching,” he said. Altea, which helps manage airline flight reservations, inventory and departure-control capabilities, is used by more than 130 airlines worldwide. It began handling Southwest’s international flights in 2014. Amadeus competes with Sabre Corp. and Travelport Worldwide Ltd.<br/>