Southwest Airlines is owning up to its mistakes.
Company CEO Bob Jordan recently apologized again and took responsibility for the issue that caused the various canceled flights passengers experienced during the latest holiday season.
You may remember that the airline was alleged to be running outdated software to schedule flights that were insufficient in keeping up with the pilots' and flight attendants' locations, along with the weather at the time.
Southwest Airlines Pledge Details
In his interview with Reuters, Jordan mentioned he is promising passengers and prospective customers he is looking into ways to avoid the meltdown that happened last holiday season.
According to the CEO, there may be a lot of reasons that caused the meltdown to happen, but at the end of the day, the blame will fall on him. As a result, it is his responsibility to prevent another meltdown from ever happening again and to rebuild the trust customers have in the company.
As the company's first step towards fixing the issue that caused it to cancel more than 16,700 flights during the holiday season, Southwest engaged consultancy Oliver Wyman to investigate the operational failures the company experienced. To do so, they would need to interview company staff and union members to reconstruct the issue.
It also established a new Operations Review Committee to supervise management following the last month's issue, along with taking on General Electric's assistance in updating its software as part of its interim measures to avoid a repeat of 2022's meltdown.
As of press time, General Electric found that the company's current software "performed as designed" during the problems last month, with the company working with Southwest Airlines to define "new functionality" while it improves its crew rescheduling capability.
In addition to updating its rescheduling system, the company also established a new team of trained employees who can be cross-utilized to manage rescheduling crews in light of a similar disruption happening in the future.
Furthermore, Southwest Airlines are also awarding customers affected by the meltdown $300 worth of Rapid Rewards points as a goodwill gesture and a fare sale.
It is also processing numerous customer reimbursements a day, along with delivering all the luggage that went missing during the holiday season. So far, only 1% of the missing luggage has yet to be delivered to their respective owners.
In total, the meltdown cost Southwest Airlines up to $825 million, including lost revenue and passenger reimbursements, per Business Insider. Accordingly, the company expects to post a net loss for the fourth quarter of 2022.
Other Legal Consequences
Southwest Airlines' customers aren't the only ones looking to settle things with the company. Some of the company shareholders banded together to file a class action lawsuit against the company for making false or misleading statements that ignored the risks of having outdated technology and its unique flight structure.
Additionally, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli demanded to know how the company plans to prevent a similar meltdown from happening.
