DALLAS — After taking desperate measures to try to stabilize its broken flight operations, Southwest Airlines could have its full schedule restored by Friday in time for another busy holiday travel weekend, company leaders told employees late Wednesday.
Dallas-based Southwest Airlines, in the midst of the worst operational breakdown in company history, on Monday decided to cut two-thirds of its flights for a few days to try to “reset” the airline after winter weather and a massive technology meltdown forced thousands of cancellations.
Southwest spent the last two days developing a plan to get pilots and flight attendants back into position to resume trips they had originally scheduled before the meltdown. Cutting around 2,500 flights a day has given the carrier the resources to track down flight attendants and pilots scattered across the country and develop a strategy to end the cascading problems that resulted in more than 15,000 cancellations since Dec. 22.
The delays and cancellations have prompted examination from the Department of Transportation and scrutiny from politicians in Washington, D.C.
“Right now it looks like a pretty smooth operation as we head into this transition tomorrow to allow us to resume operations on Friday at our normal schedule, which is a big step up,” chief operating officer Andrew Watterson said in the message.
After halting sales on most tickets this week, Southwest now has flights available starting Friday on its website.
Southwest Airlines Pilots Association president Casey Murray said the carrier spent Wednesday trying to get crew members back to their home base airports so they could be dispersed out Thursday and be in place to start regular flying on Friday.
“The hope is to start fresh Friday with everyone in the right place,” Murray said.
Southwest has nearly 4,000 flights a day planned over the New Year’s weekend as millions of travelers look to return back home, to college and back to work after the holiday break.
Southwest has been coy about how much progress it is making toward restoring its flight operations. Too much optimism could provide false hope to millions of passengers delayed by the breakdown and backfire if there are further disruptions.
Southwest, the nation’s largest domestic carrier, has blamed the issue on “overmatched” crew scheduling software that couldn’t handle the complexity of trying to reassign thousands of pilots and flight attendants during a winter storm that swept through the country last week and affected major Southwest airports in Denver and Chicago.
Union leaders have blamed airline leadership for letting company technology fall woefully behind the demands of running such a complex operation.
CEO Bob Jordan has pledged to customers that the company will make changes to ensure this kind of disruption doesn’t happen again.
In the memo, Watterson said they plan to put pilots and flight attendants on flights that they had originally been scheduled for instead of trying to rebuild assignments from scratch.
“Customers want to fly what they originally bought so going to that schedule is actually requires the least changes and is the least disruptive,” Watterson said.
