No pun intended, but a travel expert says it’s a perfect storm that led to the massive disruption of flights by Southwest Airlines that's left travelers stranded all over the U.S.
Kyle Potter of the Thrifty Traveler says Southwest's crew scheduling technology effectively failed at the same time all airlines were affected by the latest winter storm and pandemic restrictions. Appearing on the WCCO Morning News, Potter says there's little air travelers can do when it comes to compensation for missed flights.
“There’s not a guarantee that if the airline strands you somewhere, they have to put you up in a hotel,” says Potter. “U.S. regulations really leave it up to airlines to decide what it is to do right by consumers. In most cases that just comes down to what’s going to be the best to protect their brand.”
Potter says efforts to create regulations guaranteeing compensation for missed flights have failed in congress in recent years.
Problems with Southwest Airlines continue too. Thousands of flight scheduled Monday are canceled, and just as many scheduled Tuesday are already canceled. Potter says the recent winter storm, and pandemic concerns were already causing problems with Southwest but much of this comes down to how Southwest handled the situation.
“It’s also clear at this point, and the CEO has sent out a memo to employees admitting that basically amid all of these things, their scheduling technology kind of broke, and they didn’t have the staffing levels anyway to get people where they needed to be after all of these disruptions at the outset of this storm,” Potter said. “It really has been a perfect storm. Some of it at least has been by Southwest’s making.”
Other airlines have had delays this past week, but it’s nothing like the issues Southwest has had explains Potter.
“Just the way that they run their flight network across the United States is a little bit different than the major U. S. airlines like Delta and American and United,” Potter said. “Rather than running from one of their big hubs like Minneapolis to another airport and back, flights just kind of fan out across the country with Southwest. I think that's a contributing factor here.”
Potter says the scope of Southwest's flight disruptions are truly massive. Making matters worse is the lack of protections for air travelers left stranded at airport around the country.
“I think at this point it's safe to say that this is the biggest airline meltdown that we've seen,” Potter tells WCCO. “At least in a couple of decades and probably in the history of aviation, at least as far as I'm aware of.”
Meanwhile, thousands of passengers are stranded across the U.S. with chaos at some airports and Southwest customers left scrambling for ways to get home, or places to stay while they wait to be rescheduled.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has said they intend to investigate the situation in the wake of all of Southwest's stranded customers.
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