More consumers than ever have asked me the same question: What is happening with Southwest?
I reached out to Southwest Airlines for information. After working with them for years, their explanations usually are good and have always played out well. These storm-delayed passengers came at the worst time for the airline — the Christmas and New Year holidays.
This was the first time a winter storm simultaneously blanketed the entire USA. Southwest has never seen a snowstorm of this size and intensity for at least two decades. Frankly, their systems broke down when they attempted to handle the storm-delayed passengers.
As an admirer of Southwest Airlines’ passenger service, I predicted that the airline’s reputation for assisting passengers during emergencies would keep them at the top of the list for all travelers. So far, my predictions have been on point.
The following slides tell the story of Southwest’s efforts. These slides were presented to Congress to explain the airline’s problems.
These slides came from a deck presented to members of Congress and the Department of Transportation (DOT) on March 10, 2023. The slide deck displays the steps Southwest Airlines took to deal with the havoc created by Winter Storm Elliott and make passengers as whole as possible.
This first slide tells the story of Southwest’s outreach to customers over the holiday period. All these actions were made above and beyond the DOT requirements.
The recovery progress is noted here in the following slide. This response was reported to DOT and Congress.
All Southwest passengers caught up in this Southwest IT and personnel meltdown received 25,000 frequent flier miles as a token of goodwill. This action was in addition to refunds and reimbursements. These Rapid Reward Points have no expiration date and can be used for gift cards and select merchandise.
The passengers were also provided a link to get a full refund for flight costs and/or expense reimbursement.
The Southwest teams worked to get the baggage backlog to travelers through the entire holiday period. Plus, abandoned baggage was returned to passengers when possible during their holidays.
Even with these extraordinary efforts, Southwest is facing more DOT actions.
The Southwest action in the face of unpredicted weather showed real corporate determination. The airline’s response has been exemplary. However, the question of why Southwest Airlines had the meltdown in the first place continues.
Southwest ended up canceling more than 15,000 flights during this disruption. CEO Jordon said, “The company’s growth outstripped the tools needed.” In addition, during my conference calls with airline folks, members of boards of directors, executives, and pilots, all pointed to different issues from updating the software and reliance on phone systems!
The Southwest point-to-point system is complex.
The basic problem is that no other airline in the US operated a system as complex as Southwest. It is a true point-to-point system. It has long been built that way. All other IT programs and systems are designed as hub-and-spoke systems. There is simply no other IT program that can operate the system Southwest has run for the past 20 years.
Though other airlines often do not call their systems hub-and-spoke, they essentially are that. This provides other airlines a way to slice and dice their planes and personnel geographically and thus limit storm damage to what are essentially hub-and-spoke networks. The Southwest operations can have planes and crews starting in Manchester, NH, and ending in Seattle, WA. That is a lot of flying and crew changes.
No other IT systems can be purchased off the shelf that can handle the number of aircraft and crews that Southwest flies. Designing a new program that can handle the complexities will take time. Or it will take time to realign the planes and crews to establish a different flying system.
The current system has served Southwest adequately for decades.
Should it be tossed out because of a once-every-other-decade storm? It gets updated frequently every month, as many as five times or more. But so do the hub-and-spoke systems.
The search goes on for a solution. Perhaps a city like Tampa can be carved out of the system to test the new IT solutions. The country may be reorganized with transcontinental, West, East, and Middle America systems and many connecting flights.
Time will tell. And that is what the airline does not have, nor does the government.
READ ALSO:
Safe Fees, nothing but Hotel Resort Fees by another name
Why female crash dummies have no place in safety testing today
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
