Employees and leadership from Southwest Airlines testified before the U.S. Senate in Washington Thursday on the cancellations and luggage issues the company had in December. The hearing was organized by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
Members say Southwest cancelled 16,700 flights.
"While bad weather can happen and is expected, many airlines recovered quickly," says Committee Chair Maria Cantwell (D-WA). "Southwest stood out on the scope of the problems it faced. Over two million Southwest passengers suffered consequences, separated from family and friends, not to mention their luggage and hundreds of thousands people stranded at airports across the country. We know many of them had no clear instructions about what to do next."
Sen. Ted Cruz, the ranking Republican on the committee, said he often flies Southwest and says Southwest "most days does a fantastic job."
"It was an epic screw-up," he said. "Tens of thousands of families, including many Texans, missed Christmas at home, missed weddings, medical procedures and more due initially to an unavoidable weather event but prolonged for days because of the very serious failures of Southwest Airlines."
"I want to sincerely and humbly apologize to those impacted by the disruption," Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson told the committee. "It caused a tremendous amount of anguish, inconvenience and missed opportunities for our customers and our employees during a time of year when people want to gather with their families and avoid stressful situations."
Watterson told the committee the winter storm caused greater issues than expected, but he said Southwest has already tested new scheduling software which will go live Friday.
"If the same event happened in a week, we would have a different outcome?" Cantwell asked.
"That technology would not stop functioning," Watterson answered. "We believe our winter operations resiliency was our root cause, and that will take longer to address."
Watterson said Southwest had already refunded "hundreds of millions of dollars" to passengers.
"Southwest believes in building lasting relationships with the communities we serve," he told the committee. "We are intensely focused on reducing the risk of repeating the operational disruption we had in December and repairing the trust our company's had and earned over our 52 year history."
Watterson said staff in Denver and Chicago could not complete shifts. Denver and Chicago are Southwest's two busiest markets, so he said issues with weather at those airports led to subsequent cancellations.
Capt. Casey Murray, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, told the committee the airline had ignored opportunities to improve software and preparedness.
"For years, our pilots have been sounding the alarm about Southwest's inadequate crew scheduling technology and outdated operational processes," he said.
Watterson said Southwest plans to spend $1.3 billion to upgrade its computer systems this year. Asked by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) if that would address issues raised by the pilots union, Watterson said the amount was 25% more than Southwest had spent on IT in 2019.
"We prioritized enhancements to our crew scheduling software. We strengthened our early indicators dashboard to escalate operational issues earlier, and we established supplemental operational staffing that can quickly mobilize and support group recovery efforts."
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