Southwest Airlines has publicly made available its “Final Summary and Action Plan re: December Operational Disruption.” The five-page document outlines the airline management side of events and the response – building on previous efforts to futureproof Southwest.

Southwest Airlines’ Response and Recovery

Southwest Airlines management alleged that, “Winter Storm Elliott was epic in scale, velocity, and duration,” which required Southwest Airlines to cancel many flights between Christmas and December 30, 2022. The cancellations reduced services from the holiday peak of 4,000 daily flights to just 1,500 daily flights from December 27, 2022, until December 30, 2022. The airline’s management admitted almost two million customers had their lives disrupted.

In recovery, Southwest Airlines has worked to reunite 99% of almost 100,000 pieces of luggage. Airline management also claims to have processed 99% of refunds & reimbursement to affected passengers. In return, as of late March 2023, nearly half of the affected passengers have flown with Southwest Airlines again.

Southwest Airlines investments and purchases for preparedness

Southwest Airlines is investing in preparedness in response to the flight disruptions discussed above. To tackle the widely reported information technology (IT) problems, management is setting aside budget to invest $1.3 billion to renew the airline’s technology, a 25% increase over 2019 investments. Part of this investment is in a crew optimization software upgrade to better connect both flight attendants and pilots with aircraft.

This has been an issue during ongoing labor negotiations the airline is having with flight attendants and pilots, with their union SWAPA preparing a strike authorization vote. Another technology investment is a better aviation weather application for better gauging local weather conditions and help pilots calculate the safe amount of time before requesting another deicing.

In addition, a group of employees is being trained to surge support staff during irregular operations (IROPS), such as extreme weather events. This should reduce the hold times for front-line employees like flight attendants and pilots when attempting to reschedule and reconnect with the airline’s head office. Furthermore, there will be more capacity to connect passengers with relief from flight disruptions – another issue that cropped up in late December 2022.

Southwest Airlines is also purchasing more physical equipment to address future inclement weather incidents. A partial list of such extreme weather preparedness equipment is below:

• Additional deicing trucks and deicing pads plus deicing fluid (glycol)
• 200 additional engine covers to protect the 737 engines from icing, plus 16 heaters to protect ground equipment from extreme cold.
• Additional phone capacity for crew & customer communication.

Southwest Airlines’ “ongoing commitment”

The airline also made an “ongoing commitment” towards the bottom of its new action plan, which stated,

"There’s a saying that character is revealed by what a person says and what a person does. Same goes for a company. We know we have work to do to repair confidence in those whose travel plans were disrupted, and we are off to a great start in 2023—holding the #2 spot in on time performance year-to-date through March.

"Simply put, we have a nearly 52-year history of serving our Customers, Employees, and communities safely and with LUV. We will not allow a week in December to define us; but we will continue to learn from what happened and be better because of it."

But a strike authorization vote looms…

Finally, it’s worth noting that a strike authorization vote is looming over Southwest Airlines from the pilots’ union Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA). One of the reasons why the vote was announced in January centered around the events of December 2022. Another reason is the number of pilots departing the airline, as per the below SWAPA tweet:

There is no indication that SWAPA and Southwest Airlines are close to an agreement yet. Balloting is intended to start May 1, 2023 – and once a strike is authorized, SWAPA leaders can call a strike only after being released from negotiations by a mediator to “self-help” after at least a 30-day cooling-off period.

What is your assessment of Southwest Airlines’ situation and proposed solutions? Please share with civility in the comments.

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  Southwest Airlines

  IATA/ICAO Code:

  WN/SWA

  Airline Type:

  Low-Cost Carrier

  Hub(s):

  Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, Dallas Love Field, Denver International Airport, Harry Reid International Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Houston Hobby Airport, Los Angeles International Airport, Midway International Airport, Oakland International Airport, Orlando International Airport, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport

  Year Founded:

  1967

  CEO:

  Robert Jordan

  Country:

  United States