Over Christmas break, a winter storm dropped multiple feet of snow across American cities and airports. Thousands of flights were canceled, but more than 90% of cancellations were hosted by Southwest Airlines. According to flight tracking software, FlightAware, Southwest canceled around 2500 flights. The next highest was SkyWest with 77 flights. The worst part? Southwest may not return to normal as fast as other airlines, costing them thousands of flights and millions of dollars in revenue.
Why won’t Southwest recover for a long time? There are multiple reasons. First, the winter storm hit Southwest’s two major hubs, Chicago Midway Airport and Denver International Airport. Second, a “tripledemic” surged through major cities leaving millions of American citizens with Covid, the flu, and RSV. Southwest’s flights and staff were already stressed, and a shortage of workers pushed them to the limits. Flight crews maxed out the hours they were allowed to fly under federal regulations.
Another possible solution to these seemingly never ending problems could be to update their IT systems. Capitan Casey Murray, the president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, stated that he has seen technology problems for the past 20 months. He also stated that Southwest’s operation hasn’t really changed since 1990. Issues with customer service have been popping up too. With almost every worker at Southwest working to reschedule flights for flight crews, people have struggled to reschedule their own flights.
To recap, Southwest Airlines has had thousands of flights canceled as a result of winter storms and illnesses. The airline doesn’t have enough flight crews to replace all of the canceled flights so they are maxing out their flight hours. One of the solutions could be revamping their IT systems as they haven’t changed much in 30 years.
Do you think it is a good idea to fly Southwest Airlines if you are going on a vacation soon?
Have you ever had a flight canceled? If so, how did it turn out?
Do you think Southwest Airlines is going to change its operation? If so, how?
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/27/business/southwest-airlines-service-meltdown/index.html
Replies
I honestly feel like they have figgered things out I love flying south wast and I have always had good experiences. I have never had my flight canceled. personly I feel like my family would just end up driving if this ever happen. I defiantly think they will get this under control and I am not sure how this will be done.
I personally don't think it's a good idea to fly with Southwest Airlines anytime soon. My family and I fly with Southwest the majority of the time and we were supposed to fly out to Arizona about a month ago but our flights got canceled. I personally don't know if or how they would change their operation within the company.
I don't think its a good idea to fly southwest for a while because of cancelation. I'm going to Florida soon and we usually fly southwest but due to this we are changing plans. I have never had a cancelled flight before and I hope I never have to experience it.
I think it's probably not a great idea to fly Southwest Airlines anytime soon, if they are understaffed and their IT systems are old. I hope they do solve the problems you mentioned. I haven't ever had a flight cancelled, as far as I know, because the only flight I've ever been on, I was a baby.
In my opinion it wouldn't be a good idea to travel with Southwest Airlines if I am going on vacation due to the big amount of cancellations and problems they have had. I think if I ever end up in the situation that my flight gets cancelled I would not be happy at all and would be mad about it. I think they should change their operation by making sure they have enough available and in good condition planes so there wouldn't be as much cancellations and problems.
I would agree, I don't think it is a good idea to fly with Southwest right now. I would also be mad about my flight getting cancelled. It sounds like if your flight gets cancelled, it will take a couple days at least to get another flight to where you're going.
I don't think that the fault is the company's, but more so the circumstances. As a solution to the sickness they might want to hire more staff; as for the weather, there's not much they can do about it. Maybe a new software, or an update, would be beneficial, but wouldn't solve the issue.
My family and I fly a lot and we use Southwest a lot aslo, when they were cancelling flights over christmas break my parents were supposed to fly out with southwest to las vegas and they had flights back on the night before. I dont really think its very safe but i hope they have figured evreything out
I have never been on a plane and if I do anytime soon I will not be the one planing it or deciding what airline we fly with but it would not be smart to fly with them. I hope that Southwest Airlines change something not only to get back on track right now but to also prevent this or something similar from happening again if there was more snow in their major hubs. If that were to happen again then they would need to figure out something better because I am sure there are a lot of angry people.
I agree with you, I think that Southwest has multiple options to prevent another weather cancelation. However, I don't think there is much they could do about sickness. I'm not sure if Southwest could deal with more flights being canceled.
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