A Southwest Airlines passenger jet lands at Chicago Midway International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, on December 28, 2022.
Kamil Krzaczynski | AFP | Getty Images
Southwest Airlines plans to apologize before a Senate panel on Thursday over the carrier’s December meltdown that stranded tons of of 1000’s of travelers around Christmas.
“In hindsight, we didn’t have enough winter operational resilience,” Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson said in written testimony, which was reviewed by CNBC, ahead of Senate Commerce Committee hearing.
Southwest canceled greater than 16,700 flights between Dec. 21 and Dec. 31 as its crew-scheduling software couldn’t keep pace with massive flight disruptions from brutal coast-to-coast winter weather. The debacle made for an $800 million pretax hit and drove the carrier to a net loss last quarter.
Watterson plans to inform the committee that the carrier has made short-term improvements to speak more easily with crews when things go fallacious and has improved tools that keep track of the operation’s stability.
With those mitigation tools, “we’re confident in our flight network and the schedules we have now published on the market,” Watterson plans to say, in response to the testimony. “The upgrade to the Crew software will equip us to raised handle recovery from a mass cancellation event.”
Committee Chair Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., called the hearing as political pressure mounts over a number of flight disruptions last yr that drove up the fee of trips, if not derailed them, for 1000’s of consumers.
Lawmakers even have their sights set on airline fees. President Joe Biden is aiming to crack down on seat charges, amongst other fees, and mentioned the problem during his State of the Union speech Wednesday night.
Southwest’s CEO Bob Jordan, a greater than three-decade veteran on the carrier who has been within the job for one yr, is not going to attend the hearing Thursday. A spokesperson said Jordan had previous commitments, including an worker event.
The hearing may also include testimony from Casey Murray, president of the Southwest pilots’ labor union; Sharon Pinkerton, senior vice chairman of legislative and regulatory policy at Airlines for America, an industry group that represents the country’s largest airlines; Paul Hudson, president of consumer rights group Flyers’ Rights; and Clifford Winston, a senior fellow on the Brookings Institution.
