As climate change continues to make once-extreme weather events more routine, and airlines pack more passengers onto planes to increase efficiency and lower prices, a single disruption can throw the whole air travel system into chaos.
The Dallas-based airline has pledged to do better. Southwest’s chief executive said the company would invest more than $1 billion to upgrade its IT system, and on Thursday during the first quarterly investor call since the fiasco, company executives spent significant time pledging that the year-end failures would not be repeated. In all, the company canceled more than 16,700 flights, sharply more than other airlines, which recovered faster from the multi-state storms than Southwest did.
“There are things we need to work on as we continue to grow this operation,” Jordan said during the call. The lack of hubs also means Southwest can spread out its labor costs instead of needing large numbers of employees during peak times at locations where many planes arrive at the same time. If a location has less demand than expected, it’s easier to move planes than relocate an entire hub.However, the hub-and-spoke network is more resilient because there are more pilots and crew members in a single location.
“We are a very complex network,” said Captain Casey Murray, president of the Southwest pilots union. “It’s much more difficult not only to manage but recover.” During the meltdown, Southwest also was forced to fly more than 700 non-passenger flights to reposition crew and planes, adding to the episode’s financial hit.
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