Southwest Airlines Reveals NEW Plan To Prevent Cancelations

If you follow airline news, then you likely remember that Southwest had a bit of a fiasco over the holiday season.

During one of the busiest weeks of the year, thousands of flights were canceled. Many travelers were left stranded in airports across the country, and Southwest Airlines faced a lot of backlash from the event. Since then, the company has been working to create a plan going forward…and now they’ve revealed the details.

The Southwest Airlines website has been updated with the new Action Plan. The top of the webpage says the following: “Our Purpose has always been to connect you to what’s important in your life. We fell short on that Purpose this past December when extreme weather and an unprecedented number of flight cancellations overwhelmed our ability to recover and serve you properly.

Following these events, we conducted a thorough internal review, working with our Board of Directors, and engaged respected aviation consultancy Oliver Wyman, for a third-party assessment. From that work, we have identified key root causes of the event and developed a conclusive action plan to address them.”

©Wall Street Journal | Southwest Airlines CEO

There are three main steps to the Action Plan overall. First, Southwest plans to improve winter operations by “reinforcing airport infrastructure, increasing the availability of winter equipment, and bolstering our overall preparedness for extreme winter conditions.” This will help prevent major issues in the case of winter storms, similar to the ones that took place last December.

Second, Southwest has announced that they will accelerate operational investments. By this, they mean that the company will be investing in tools and technology that will help improve recovery during regular operations. This includes updates to the software, the phone call system, and “improving the tool responsible for electronically notifying Flight Crews of their new flight assignments.”

Finally, the third part of the Action Plan is to enhance cross-team collaboration. Southwest says that “Compartmentalized communications and gaps in our processes between important operational workgroups resulted in bottlenecks” last December. To fix this, the company has consolidated the team that designs the flight schedule and the team that oversees the day-to-day operations into one department. Southwest is also improving company communications through new dashboards and alert systems.

We’re interested to see how these changes play out in the future. For the full plan, make sure to check out the Southwest Airlines website. We’ll keep you updated on any more news!