Southwest Airlines Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson is scheduled to testify earlier than a Senate committee on Thursday to debate the cancellation of practically 16,700 flights in December.

David Zalubowski/AP

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David Zalubowski/AP

Southwest Airlines Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson is scheduled to testify earlier than a Senate committee on Thursday to debate the cancellation of practically 16,700 flights in December.

David Zalubowski/AP

One of Southwest Airlines’ prime executives will seem earlier than a Senate committee Thursday to debate the company’s holiday meltdown and ship a transparent message to the general public: “we messed up.”

According to written testimony obtained by NPR, Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson will once more apologize for the December debacle that noticed 16,700 flights canceled throughout the U.S. and try to elucidate what precisely induced the disaster at one of many nation’s largest carriers.

Officials have stated a mixture of severe winter weather, staffing shortages and technological points led to cancellations and delays that left folks stranded in airports throughout the nation and unable to journey for the vacations.

But it is unclear why Southwest carried out so badly at the same time as different airways rebounded from the storm.

The fiasco prompted a wave of blowback from fliers and staff, sparked a Department of Transportation investigation and value the corporate as a lot as $825 million.

Now, Southwest says it is conducting an inner overview of what went flawed and is vowing to make it as much as clients. Watterson is providing an in depth account of the meltdown as he prepares to talk in a listening to earlier than the Senate Commerce Committee.

Worse-than-expected winter climate led to staffing points

According to Watterson’s ready testimony, the foremost winter storm on Dec. 21 was far worse than airline officers had anticipated, forcing Southwest to cancel virtually all of its flight schedule for a number of days in Denver and Chicago — its two largest stations.

1 / 4 of all Southwest flight crews start and finish their stints at these two airports, and the cancellations there had impacts on flights elsewhere. Meanwhile, the storm was shifting east and besieging different airports with related issues.

Communication amongst Southwest operations facilities rapidly broke down and led to “compounding, frequent, close-in flight cancellations” relatively than superior cancellations with extra discover to vacationers.

Crew schedulers could not sustain with the domino impact of flight cancellations, and with out up-to-date schedules, Southwest’s crew scheduling software program could not reassign crews to understaffed flights.

Ultimately, “the disruption primarily revealed a need to add functionality” to the to our Crew Scheduling software program to resolve for a big backlog of damaged Crew pairings,” Watterson says in the prepared remarks.

The company ultimately decided to “pre-cancel” two-thirds of its flights from Dec. 27-29 in order to reset operations and get back to its normal schedule by Dec. 30.

Southwest embarks on a quest of internal reflection — and third-party guidance

For 2023, Watterson says Southwest has budgeted to spend $1.3 billion of the company’s annual operating plan on investments, upgrades, and IT systems maintenance plans.

He additionally touts a number of mitigation efforts that he says are already within the works, together with enhancements to digital communication instruments between crews and crew scheduling groups — a key level of weak spot in the course of the journey meltdown.

Operational employees has additionally been bolstered to assist assist crew restoration efforts “at the first sign of a potential backlog.”

And the provider has added extra flights in 2023, which officers say will make it simpler to re-book clients if and when flights are disrupted due to dangerous climate or different points.

Southwest can be on the lookout for exterior recommendation.

Watterson says the airline has employed Oliver Wyman, a administration consultancy agency, to make suggestions on how one can enhance efficiency on dangerous climate days, amongst different areas. The two evaluations will dictate “what sequence of improvements is most appropriate in terms of supporting our Customers, Employees, and technology infrastructure.”

The airline plans to deal with every particular person’s request from the meltdown

The COO ends his written testimony by noting the steps Southwest has taken for the hundreds of consumers who had been affected by the unprecedented flight cancellations.

Southwest has spent tons of of tens of millions of {dollars} granting all “reasonable” reimbursement requests for buyer’s out-of-pocket bills, together with lodges, rental automobiles and meals. And, as a gesture of goodwill, the airline has additionally given clients 25,000 Rapid Rewards factors — roughly a $300 worth, in accordance with the feedback. Bags and baggage had been returned to their rightful house owners, in some circumstances with the help of exterior distributors.

“These actions go above and beyond applicable DOT requirements relating to airline refunds and baggage and travel expense reimbursements for flights cancelled or significantly delayed by an airline,” Watterson says. “It has truly been an all-hands-on-deck effort, and our People will not let up until all requests are complete.”