5 things to know about Southwest's disastrous meltdown
1 year, 11 months ago

5 things to know about Southwest's disastrous meltdown

NPR  

5 things to know about Southwest's disastrous meltdown Enlarge this image toggle caption Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images Families with young children stranded at the airport for Christmas. Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan compared the airline's debacle to a "giant puzzle" that needs to be solved. Sponsor Message "I have 50,000 miles with them," said Hillary Chang, a traveler whose bag is lost in the Southwest disaster vortex. Employees are frustrated, too The president of the union representing Southwest pilots called the Christmas meltdown "catastrophic" but told NPR he, for one, wasn't surprised by it — and neither were most pilots.

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Southwest is adding deicing trucks after December breakdown
1 year, 9 months ago

Southwest is adding deicing trucks after December breakdown

Associated Press  

The CEO of Southwest Airlines pushed back Tuesday against the view that his airline’s December breakdown was caused by a failure to invest enough money in crew-scheduling technology, instead blaming extremely cold weather that forced it to stop flying at some airports. Southwest said it is buying more deicing trucks and lining up additional deicing pads at key airports and …

Can Southwest Airlines recover from a holiday meltdown of its own making?
1 year, 11 months ago

Can Southwest Airlines recover from a holiday meltdown of its own making?

The Independent  

Sign up to Simon Calder’s free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calder’s Travel email Get Simon Calder’s Travel email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. But Southwest Airlines experienced a network-wide collapse that left passengers, pilots and planes even in sunny and warm locations unable …

Southwest’s strong 2022 rebound soured by holiday debacle
1 year, 11 months ago

Southwest’s strong 2022 rebound soured by holiday debacle

Associated Press  

DALLAS — Southwest Airlines is anticipating a money-losing fourth quarter after a winter storm and technology meltdown led to nearly 17,000 canceled flights and stranded hundreds of thousands of holiday travelers. The airline said that expenses increased due to reimbursements to customers for out-of-pocket costs — the company has promised to cover “reasonable” bills for hotel rooms, meals and alternate …

Column: The guilty parties evading blame for the Southwest meltdown are its board members
1 year, 11 months ago

Column: The guilty parties evading blame for the Southwest meltdown are its board members

LA Times  

A Southwest employee picking his way through a sea of unclaimed baggage at its Los Angeles International Airport terminal just before New Year’s Day. That leaves one set of Southwest figures who have, so far, evaded the finger-pointing after the airline’s epic meltdown: the board of directors. — Southwest flight attendants union These are the people who have presided over …

America’s Southwest Airlines flew against its distinct culture
1 year, 11 months ago

America’s Southwest Airlines flew against its distinct culture

Live Mint  

Four days before Christmas, Southwest Airlines’ vice-president of ground operations Chris Johnson issued a memo to employees at the Denver airport. Declaring a “state of operational emergency,” he said the airline had received an unusually high number of absences among some workers, and would need employees “alleging illness” to provide a doctor’s note on their first day back. “It absolutely …

10 Months Into Job, Southwest Airlines' CEO Faces a Giant Crisis Amid Mass Cancellations
1 year, 11 months ago

10 Months Into Job, Southwest Airlines' CEO Faces a Giant Crisis Amid Mass Cancellations

News 18  

After Southwest Airlines made it through Thanksgiving with few flight cancellations, Bob Jordan, the company’s CEO, was in a celebratory mood. At a meeting with Wall Street analysts and investors this month at the New York Stock Exchange, he said the company’s performance had been “just incredible.” But a few weeks later, over the Christmas holiday, Southwest’s operations went into …

How Southwest failed the holidays: Four charts explaining the cancellations
1 year, 11 months ago

How Southwest failed the holidays: Four charts explaining the cancellations

CNN  

CNN — A blast of severe winter weather last week caused thousands of Southwest Airlines flight cancellations and spiraled into a complete meltdown of its flight system. Since Dec. 22, the beleaguered airline has canceled more than half of its typical flight schedule, and by late Wednesday about 87% of all canceled flights in the US were from Southwest alone, …

Southwest Airlines flight cancellations continue to snowball
1 year, 11 months ago

Southwest Airlines flight cancellations continue to snowball

Associated Press  

DALLAS — Families hoping to catch a Southwest Airlines flight after days of cancellations, missing luggage and missed family connections suffered through another wave of scrubbed flights, with another 2,500 pulled from arrival and departure boards Wednesday. In a video that Southwest posted late Tuesday, CEO Robert Jordan said Southwest would operate a reduced schedule for several days but hoped …

Column: Southwest’s meltdown was born in America’s cheapskate corporate culture
1 year, 11 months ago

Column: Southwest’s meltdown was born in America’s cheapskate corporate culture

LA Times  

Southwest passenger Amanda Gevorgyan looks for her luggage among hundreds of bags from Southwest Airlines flight cancellations at LAX. That trend implies that as the country’s other air carriers have begun to work out their own traffic snarls resulting from the massive “bomb cyclone” that struck the U.S. starting on the day before Christmas, Southwest remains mired in disaster. “Our …

‘System failure’: US blames Southwest Airlines for meltdown
1 year, 11 months ago

‘System failure’: US blames Southwest Airlines for meltdown

Al Jazeera  

US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigeig says mass flight cancellations are not merely a ‘weather-driven issue’. The administration of US President Joe Biden has called the meltdown that led to the cancellation of thousands of flights at Southwest Airlines a “system failure”, blaming the company itself for the crisis. “So what this indicates is a system failure, and they need …

Pilots union at Southwest blames longstanding problems for flight disruptions
1 year, 11 months ago

Pilots union at Southwest blames longstanding problems for flight disruptions

NPR  

Pilots union at Southwest blames longstanding problems for flight disruptions NPR's Leila Fadel talks to Casey Murray, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, about the thousands of flight cancellations that have led to massive travel nightmares. LEILA FADEL, HOST: The pilots who fly millions of Southwest Airlines passengers each year say the waves of canceled flights over the past …

Holiday Hell: How Southwest Airlines' ‘full-blown meltdown’ created travel chaos in US
1 year, 11 months ago

Holiday Hell: How Southwest Airlines' ‘full-blown meltdown’ created travel chaos in US

Firstpost  

Southwest Airlines, one of the world’s biggest low-cost carriers and the inspiration for IndiGo, cancelled around 2,900 flights on Monday. This, after US airlines cancelled 3,900 flights with Southwest Airlines – one of the world’s biggest low-cost carriers – accounting for 2,900 of these. “Our customers struggled with it just as our thousands of flight attendants did.” Montgomery in an …

The blizzard is just one reason behind the operational meltdown at Southwest Airlines
1 year, 11 months ago

The blizzard is just one reason behind the operational meltdown at Southwest Airlines

NPR  

The blizzard is just one reason behind the operational meltdown at Southwest Airlines Enlarge this image toggle caption Eugene Garcia/AP Eugene Garcia/AP The cliché about a "perfect storm" could hardly be a more apt description of the situation right now for Southwest Airlines — a carrier that has been forced to cancel more than 60% of its flights over the …

Longtime Southwest Airlines CEO will step down next year
3 years, 6 months ago

Longtime Southwest Airlines CEO will step down next year

Associated Press  

DALLAS — Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly will step down in February after a long run in which he steered the airline through periods of growth, recessions and now a pandemic. Jordan said in an interview that his goals are to restore Southwest’s profitability to “the levels we would like and expect,” repair the balance sheet — Southwest took on …

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