![]() With Southwest, however, "their pilots take off in the morning from one city, then they fly to two, three, four, five, six other cities. But in inclement weather, it can cause problems, says Kathleen Bangs, a former commercial airline pilot and spokesperson for FlightAware.ĭelta's big hub, for example, is Atlanta, while United filters many of its flights through Chicago. In fair weather, it's a system that has worked well for them. "Southwest has always been a laggard when it comes to technology."Īnother key factor is Southwest's heavily reliance on shorter, point-to-point flights, rather than a "hub and spoke" model of many of its largest competitors. "It's not only their customer-facing systems, it's their crew scheduling and so on," Becker says. Helane Becker, an aviation analyst with Cowen, an investment bank and financial services company, says Southwest needs to bring those tools, in the form of internal software systems, up to date. The company said the severe weather had "forced daily changes to our flight schedule at a volume and magnitude that still has the tools our teams use to recover the airline operating at capacity." "We recognize falling short and sincerely apologize." "And our heartfelt apologies for this are just beginning," Southwest said. In a statement issued Monday, the airline said the "continuing challenges" to its operations impacting its customers are "unacceptable." "Southwest needs to be held accountable for such a colossal failure," McClain says. He says he's flown Southwest for the past decade, but he will wait and see how the company makes him whole before deciding to fly with the airline again. that didn't end up departing until 9 p.m. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, released a statement saying the committee would look into "the causes of these disruptions and its impact to customers."įor Southwest passenger Taylor McClain, 34, the saga started last Thursday, when his morning flight from Salt Lake City into Chicago Midway was canceled. That failure has attracted the attention of Congress. We've had clear skies in the United States for several days now, more or less, and Southwest is the only airline that is failing so spectacularly here." "At this point, we can very safely say that this is no longer a weather-related disturbance. "In short, everything possible has gone wrong for Southwest, including some problems of their own making," says Kyle Potter, executive editor of Thrifty Traveler, a travel website. Most important is an outdated computer system for crew scheduling that turned what would have been simply a challenging storm into a full-scale meltdown. Weather Buffalo tries to clear the roads after the Christmas weekend's deadly winter stormĪnalysts say Southwest's problems are the result of a confluence of events - not just the severe weather, but staff shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as employees out sick with influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
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