It has also previously committed, for any avoidable cancellation or extreme delay, to rebook passengers at no additional cost, and offer vouchers for meals and hotel accommodations.Īnd Southwest seems willing to cover even more costs for this debacle. Southwest is required by law to offer a full refund for a canceled flight. Customers may be reimbursed for "reasonable" expenses (. The same situation unfolded in this disaster, and many pilots and flight crews took to social media to express frustration with their own company. Pilots were ready to work, but Southwest didn't have planes or routes available for them. There were multiple scheduling meltdowns in the last two years that, while smaller than the Christmas disaster, indicated that Southwest had a problem. "And it's really just not scaled for an operation that we have today." "We're still using, not only IT from the '90s, but also processes when our airline was a tenth of the size," he said. 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. I'm open to dating another airline." Customers aren't the only ones angry. Now, she says, "I've been thinking about it. "I have 50,000 miles with them," said Hillary Chang, a traveler whose bag is lost in the Southwest disaster vortex. "They're usually pretty good at responding to crises."Ĭustomers are bewildered by how terrible this experience has been. "They've got the best reputation for customer service and management agility," airline analyst Richard Aboulafia told NPR. It was a well-respected - in some cases, even beloved - company. Southwest isn't a fly-by-night operation, or a bare-bones discount airline where customers have low expectations and misery is part of the bargain. The epic failure of the airline caught many by surprise The Department of Transportation says it is launching its own investigation into exactly what went wrong. And he said the company clearly needed to accelerate its "already existing plans to upgrade systems." Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan compared the airline's debacle to a "giant puzzle" that needs to be solved. While the airline did not officially rule out the addition of new cities, it indicated that it was not a new priority but something that, if an attractive option, could be something the airline does.Weather The blizzard is just one reason behind the operational meltdown at Southwest Airlinesīy all accounts Southwest was using badly outdated computer systems to manage that complicated system. Southwest has indicated that it feels comfortable with the number of destinations it has in its network and plans on slowing down from adding new cities. Watterson explained that these were extensions in cities where the airline already has a significant market presence in other airports in the area. The last three (Miami, Chicago O'Hare, and Houston-Bush) are co-terminal points. There were six destinations that Southwest added that it considers as "origin" points where it can generate traffic to connect to the rest of its network: There were nine leisure-focused destinations: The 18 new stations are split into three categories. The cascade effect across the system is that, as Southwest builds back these cities, it also comes back in other markets like Columbus or Pittsburgh to create a network that works for a variety of travels and offers enough depth and connectivity to support revenue growth and the airline's financial recovery. This includes the big bases like Baltimore, Chicago, Atlanta, Tampa, Las Vegas, etc. This describes the airline's strategy in the top 50 US cities where Southwest was the largest airline based on passengers carried. Some cities ended up with a little bit less capacity, some ended up with a little bit more capacity than pre-pandemic, but all restored to a relevant network that supports and defends our position as a leader." "Our network planning team looked at each and said, 'What is the network that allows for business travel, leisure travel, visiting friends and relatives?' and built that back up city-by-city. Watterson described, the airline is approaching the restoration of its network in a very organized way: The return of the network will not be uniform to pre-crisis standards. Not a uniform rebuilding to pre-crisis standards
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