Southwest Airlines Announces New Strategies To Reduce Cancelations

It’s safe to say that the travel plans of many were hindered this past December when Southwest Airlines canceled a ton of domestic flights due to a winter storm. These cancelations resulted in thousands of angry travelers, warranting refunds and even a senate hearing.

Southwest Airlines ©Reuters

These cancelations left many passengers, flight attendants, and pilots stranded in airports with no way of traveling home. Southwest has worked to make things right after the incident, and now they’ve revealed even more information about how they plan to move forward and prevent future problems.

Southwest has recently spoken out on the cause of these cancelations and provided insight on what they plan to do to avoid situations like this happening again. According to Southwest Airlines, insufficient infrastructure and winter equipment were the culprits behind the winter cancelations.

Southwest

“We had insufficient winter infrastructure and equipment in key airport locations to adequately react to a winter storm of Elliott’s epic scale, velocity, and duration, and we faced staffing challenges from the need to rotate employees outside in bitter winter weather,” Southwest said. “These issues hindered our ability to keep our flight crew networks flowing from key crew bases.”

According to Southwest, the airline came to this conclusion after conducting an internal review alongside its Board of Directors and a third-party aviation assessment. Based on the findings, the airline said that it would now be reinforcing airport infrastructure, increasing equipment, and further preparing the airline as a whole for winter weather.

Southwest

New equipment and infrastructure include de-icing trucks, pads, ground equipment, engine covers and heaters, new tools to provide pilots real-time insight into departure time once an aircraft has been de-iced, more staff, a reassessment of fuel management processes, and the refinement of ramp-cleaning procedures.

©Southwest Airlines

Further, Southwest said it would be enhancing dashboards and establishing clearer lines of communication when it comes to cancelations and delays, from increasing the phone call capacity system to the improvement of flight notifications across the airline.

Southwest Airplane

Hopefully we won’t have to worry about mass cancelations in the future! As usual, make sure to follow along for more travel news — from Disney updates to airlines! If you’re traveling to Disney soon, click the link below to check out some CHEAP flights!