Southwest Airlines apologizes as it canceled 2,700 flights on Monday

Dallas-based Southwest Airlines apologized to customers Monday after canceling more than 2,700 flights nationwide — more than two-thirds of its schedule — as it tries to recover from an operational meltdown that spilled over into an Arctic storm Thursday.

Andrew Waterson, director of operations, wrote in a note to staff Monday night that the carrier will cut two-thirds of its flights in the coming days to try to get flight attendants and pilots back to their positions to reset its operations. It’s a move that could help stabilize operations, but would also reduce flight options for the thousands of passengers stranded on their way to another busy travel week.

Southwest has canceled more than 8,000 flights since Thursday and has already canceled its flights for Tuesday in an effort to get planes, flight attendants and pilots to the correct locations to fly. About a third of Southwest’s flights to and from Dallas Love Field were canceled Monday, nearly 300 in total, according to Flightaware.com.

“It was a complete and utter mess,” said Lynn Montgomery, president of TWU Local 556 representing Southwest Airlines flight attendants. “This is not a personnel issue, this has nothing to do with flight attendants not being able to work, it’s about outdated and outdated systems.”

The delays and cancellations prompted the US Department of Transportation to announce Monday night that it would investigate how Southwest handled the situation and responded to customers.

“USDOT is concerned about Southwest’s unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays and reports of a lack of prompt customer service,” the agency said in a Twitter post. “The department will study whether cancellations are manageable and whether Southwest is complying with its customer service plan.”

Southwest commuter Jessica Bennert and her 15-year-old son were stranded at Dallas Love Field overnight on Christmas Day before renting a car to drive home.

After arriving in Dallas on a connecting flight around 3:30 p.m., the airline delayed her flight to her final destination for several hours, and finally canceled it after midnight. A mother and son spent a sleepless Sunday night sitting in a long line at the airport aisle — hoping to rebook their flight to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where they had planned to ski.

“It became a disaster area, because I’ve never seen an airport at 1 a.m. that was still packed,” she said.

The 45-year-old mom, who travels frequently for work, said she was unable to rebook the flight on the Southwest app or website.

“Everything was down, so you could only talk to the ticket agent, and the lines were crazy,” she said. “They’ll only have one person at the ticket office.”

By the time they got to the 6 a.m. box office, Burnet said she had decided to go home to Little Rock. I got to the budget booth early in the morning to rent a car and got home around 2:30 PM on Monday.

“It was just a sad Christmas,” she said. “I watched old ladies cry and fall at the airport and entire families with children. I was most sad about the people around me.”

To date, the airline has not compensated Brent for any of its flights. The duo’s baggage still rests at Love Field.

Southwest blamed cold weather systems that swept the country late last week and created freezing conditions in Denver and Chicago, two of the company’s largest markets.

“With consecutive days of severe winter weather across our network behind us, ongoing challenges are affecting our customers and employees in a significant and unacceptable way,” Southwest said in a statement. “And our heartfelt apologies for this are just beginning.”

But while other airlines were struggling with cancellations in those days, including Chicago-based United Airlines and Fort Worth-based United Airlines, only a handful of airlines still registered heavy cancellations after five days.

There were more than 3,700 flight cancellations across the United States on Monday, according to the Flightaware.com, with the vast majority of those due to Southwest Airlines. Atlanta-based Delta Airlines, which has also canceled more than 7,000 flights since Thursday, began seeing operations improve dramatically on Monday. About 9% of Delta’s flights, 273 in all, were canceled Monday.

Southwest CEO Bob Jordan has said in recent months that the company needs to make significant improvements to its technology infrastructure to prevent widespread cancellations, particularly those that reschedule flight attendants and pilots.

In a memo sent to employees Sunday, Watterson said Southwest’s systems are “overrated in situations of this magnitude.”

“Large problems exacerbated by too many moving variables impede the systems that are trying to solve them,” Watterson said in the note. “Although we need automation to recover from something of this magnitude, in some jobs, automation also develops issues that need to be troubleshooted and repaired, and that requires manual workarounds to get resolved.”

Union leaders said that any investments and small changes made so far have not resulted in improvements. Montgomery said flight attendants have been suspended for eight to 12 hours in an effort to be reassigned to new flights.

Thousands of flight attendants across the country have lost sleep over hotel rooms not being booked, especially with flights rerouted.

Meanwhile, the number of pilots and flight attendants reporting fatigue from long flights and delays is increasing, exacerbating problems across the country, she said.

“They’re trying to keep the dominos from falling,” Montgomery said. “We have another big travel holiday right around the corner with New Year’s Eve.”

Casey Murray, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, said there are hundreds of pilots around the country hoping to get flights, but they’re having trouble getting through to Southwest’s scheduling team. In some cases, Murray said, pilots show up at airports and management makes a plea on whoever is there.

“We’ve got them to not only wait for tasks, but the scheduling doesn’t know where they are,” Murray said.

Randy Barnes, who heads the TWU Local 555 union that covers ground and slope workers in the Southwest, said the company is moving employees to overburdened stations in Denver and Chicago.

“While everyone else is rushing in from these storms and the cold weather, our people are rushing outside from these storms,” ​​Barnes said. “But the longer we stay outside, we need time to come in and warm up. Because no one can stay outside in sub-zero temperatures and single-digit temperatures for very long.”

Southwest has already canceled about 10% of its schedule on Tuesday, with more cancellations likely.

“This safety-first work is deliberate, ongoing, and necessary to return to normal reliability, and one that minimizes last-minute inconveniences,” Southwest said in a statement. “We anticipate additional changes with flights already declining as the upcoming New Year’s holiday travel period approaches. We are working to reach customers whose travel plans will change with specific information and available options.”