He said the airline is “committed to and invested in” improving its systems, but “we need to be able to produce solutions faster.” “We’ve talked an awful lot about modernizing the operation, and the need to do that.” “Part of what we’re suffering is a lack of tools,” Jordan told employees. Southwest CEO Bob Jordan, in a message to employees obtained by CNN, acknowledged many of Murray’s concerns, and promised the company will invest in better systems. “It’s phones, it’s computers, it’s processing power, it’s the programs used to connect us to airplanes – that’s where the problem lies, and it’s systemic throughout the whole airline,” he said. He said the airline’s operations haven’t changed much since the 1990s. “We’ve seen these sorts of meltdowns occur on a much more regular basis and it really just has to do with outdated processes and outdated IT.” “We’ve been having these issues for the past 20 months,” he told CNN. The problems Southwest faces have been brewing for a long time, said Captain Casey Murray, the president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association. In reducing the company’s flights by two thirds, Southwest should have “more than ample crew resources to handle that amount of activity,” Watterson said. “So, we spent multiple days where we kind of got close to finishing the problem, and then it had to be reset.” “They would make great progress, and then some other disruption would happen, and it would unravel their work,” Watterson said. Watterson noted that manual scheduling left Southwest building an incredibly delicate house of cards that could quickly tumble when the company encountered a problem. “As a result, we had to ask our crew schedulers to do this manually, and it’s extraordinarily difficult,” he said. Southwest ended up with planes that were ready to take off with available crew, but the company’s scheduling software wasn’t able to match them quickly and accurately, Watterson added. “The process of matching up those crew members with the aircraft could not be handled by our technology,” Watterson said. But the Federal Aviation Administration strictly regulates when flight crews can work, complicating Southwest’s scheduling efforts. The extreme cold, ice and snow grounded planes and left some crew members stranded, so Southwest’s crew schedulers worked furiously to put a new schedule together, matching available crew with aircraft that were ready to fly. On a call with employees Monday, Southwest Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson explained that the company’s outdated scheduling software quickly became the main culprit of the cancellations once the storm cleared, according to a transcript of the call that was obtained by CNN from an aviation source. “They’re just not manned with enough manpower in order to give the scheduling changes to flight attendants, and that’s created a ripple effect that is creating chaos throughout the nation.” “The phone system the company uses is just not working,” Lyn Montgomery, President of TWU Local 556, told CNN’s Pamela Brown. Stranded customers have been unable to get through to Southwest’s customer service lines to rebook flights or find lost baggage. “Those turnaround times bog things down,” Bangs said. Southwest’s schedule includes shorter flights with tighter turnaround times, which are causing some of the problems, Kathleen Bangs, a FlightAware spokesperson, told CNN. (LUV) also hurt itself with an aggressive schedule and by underinvesting in its operations. Many airlines still l ack sufficient staff to recover when events like bad weather cause delays or flight crews max out the hours they’re allowed to work under federal safety regulations. Although Southwest says it was fully staffed for the holiday weekend, illness makes adjusting to increased system stress difficult. More bad luck: The storm hit just as the so-called tripledemic surged across America, leaving people and their families sick with Covid, the flu and RSV. The storm hit Chicago and Denver hard, where Southwest has two of its biggest hubs – Chicago Midway airport and Denver International airport. What gives? Southwest had a combination of bad luck and bad planning. The Biden administration is investigating. The company’s CEO said this has been the biggest disruption he’s seen in his career. Southwest warned that it would continue canceling flights until it could get its operations back on track. Southwest canceled more than 2,500 flights. More than 90% of Wednesday’s US flight cancellations were Southwest flights, according to flight tracking website FlightAware. By Monday, air travel was more or less back to normal – unless you booked your holiday travel with Southwest Airlines. A punishing winter storm that dumped multiple feet of snow across much of America led to widespread flight cancellations over the Christmas holiday.
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