Christmas Nightmares at Southwest

Christmas+Nightmares+at+Southwest

When Christmas time comes around, families are hoping that their flights will go smoothly in order to make it home to see their family.

Due to the fact that one of the biggest nightmares around this time is flight cancellations or delays. This last Christmas, Southwest Airlines canceled a grand total of 4,002 flights going within, in, and out of the US. To make things even worse, 9,259 flights were delayed.

No other airline has canceled or delayed this many flights, especially during one of the most important times of the year. With this being said, customers were furious. Many waited in long lines to speak to representatives, find lost baggage and had awful wait times. One passenger even reported that she was on the phone with Southwest for 10 hours. 

Southwest at first apologized for the issues, as they were trying to solve the problem. Towards the end, they ended up blaming most of this crisis on the massive snowstorm the week before because it had put the crew out of position. Finally, CEO, Robert Jordan, announced that Southwest would be going to a reduced flight schedule in hopes of getting back on track for the New Year.

Jordan also stated that normally, Southwest’s tools for disruptions work “99% of the time, but clearly, we need to double down”, meaning that they are needing to work on their system so this doesn’t repeat again.

For all of the customers that were impacted during these times, Southwest created a system in which you could refund flights, re-book flights, and track down missing bags.

With all of this said, Southwest put many families in pain during Christmas time with all of the cancellations and delays.