Deep Dive: Southwest Airlines Holiday Meltdown

Originally published on Airways

Over the past few days, Southwest Airlines (WN), one of the largest carriers in the United States, has canceled 15,200 flights between December 22 and 29.

However, on Friday, December 30, the airline promised a resumption of flights. So what was the cause of these delays, and why was WN the only US carrier to cancel so many flights?

Photo: Daniel Gorun/Airways

Background

The airline, founded in 1967, has grown to be one of the largest airlines in the world. What started as a low-cost airline operating three planes has turned into one of the largest carriers in the world, but Southwest was unable to keep pace with technological changes.

According to the union representing the carrier, workers have been raising concerns for years. These concerns have proven to be prescient, thus resulting in thousands of cancellations during one of the year’s busiest travel periods. 

As freezing temperatures and winter conditions spanned throughout many WN hubs, including Dallas Love Field, Chicago Midway, Denver, and others, the carrier’s plan for disrupted operations created a crisis.

This required the airline to redesign the carrier schedule, which required multiple departments to do so manually. According to Southwest, this manual process works the majority of the time. 

Starting on Christmas Day, Sunday, WN canceled 1,635 flights, which was 46% of its schedule. Then on Monday, it canceled 2,908 flights and around 2,300 flights per day until Friday.

Southwest Airlines N463WN Boeing 737-7H4. Photo: Alberto Cucini/Airways

Outdated Technology System

While other US carriers such as United, Delta, and America have been able to recover at the start of the week, Southwest continued to cancel flights. Unlike other l other major US carriers, Southwest does not utilize the hub-to-spoke model. A majority of its flights are point-to-point. This point-to-point model is much more vulnerable than the hub-to-spoke model, which can contain a disruption in certain areas. 

This point-to-point model has made Southwest so successful. The innovative model has allowed passengers to fly directly between smaller cities without connecting through significant hubs such as New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles. Thus cutting times and a big advantage for passengers flying between these smaller cities.

Additionally, when there is a problem in the WN software, such as in the crew scheduling system, most of the work to fix the problem needs to be completed manually. This results in the airline not knowing where crews should be or where planes should be.

A separate department, crew scheduling, manually checks flight attendants and pilots to ensure they are following federal work-hour guidelines. 

Since most crew scheduling was done manually, crew members who could have been working were waiting for hotel arrangements from the airline to adhere to federal guidelines. The phone system has been outworked, and Southwest did not have enough staff to give scheduling changes to pilots and flight attendants. This has created a ripple effect and affected thousands of Southwest flights across North America.

In the past few years, Southwest has made some improvements to its software system, such as when, in 2021, it connected its reservation system with major booking software used by corporate travelers. In 2017, the reservation system was overhauled by current CEO Bob Jordan. Additionally, the carrier has used barcodes and scanners for checked luggage, replacing an older pencil and paper method. However, many tools date from 1990s technology. 

On Friday, December 30, the carrier resumed most flights. According to FlightAware, WN has only canceled 43 flights today, backing up their claim that they would return to normal operations on Friday.

American Airlines and other US airlines capped their fares to help travelers during the holiday travel chaos. Photo: Luke Ayers/Airways

Blame Game

According to many Southwest employees, this meltdown has been destined to occur. Southwest founder and former CEO Herb Kelleher was a very operationally oriented CEO as he spent lots of time on the front line. Under Kelleher, Southwest was a much tighter operation from executive leadership to airport managers. According to a post by Captain Lonero, who has been a captain at Southwest for over 35 years, this tight operation began to shift after Kelleher left Southwest in 2004 and Gary Kelly became CEO. 

He wrote, “Gary was an accountant by education, and his style leading Southwest Airlines became more focused on finances and less on operations. He did not spend much time on the front lines. He didn’t engage front-line employees much. When the CEO doesn’t get out in the trenches, neither do the lower levels of leadership.”

Captain Lonero further added that when Kelly appointed an accountant as Chief Operating Officer, it affected the lower levels of leadership. Additionally, “They all disengaged the operation, disengaged the employees, and focused more on Return on Investment, stock buybacks and Wall Street. This approach worked for Gary’s first 8 years because we were still riding the strong wave that Herb had built.” 

Many Southwest employees stated that the airline needed to invest in technology, making operating efficiently more difficult. During the 2010s, there were multiple small-scale meltdowns, but to no avail because the executive leadership team did not listen to warnings or pleas from front-line employees.

Southwest Boeing 737 MAX 8 (N8800L). Photo: Daniel Gorun/Airways

Final Thoughts

Overall, the 20-year-old technology caused Southwest to lose track of its flight crews. They could not do their jobs and watched thousands of passengers get stranded without their bags and have their Christmas holiday vacation become a nightmare. While this meltdown could have been prevented, Southwest CEO Bob Jordan inherited this as he only became CEO on February 1, 2022.

This meltdown was not his fault but of his predecessors, and most Southwest employees believe in him and that he has the right priorities. However, change takes time, a few years at least. On Thursday, Southwest stated that it will be “investing in new solutions to manage wide-scale disruptions.” With its operation back on track today, Southwest is definitely on its way to winning back the trust of its loyal customers.