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Technological Woes
Takeaways from the Southwest Airlines Meltdown
by Stan Dunn
Plenty of media coverage was de- voted to the Southwest Airlines meltdown that occurred in the second half of this past Decem-
ber. The beleaguered air carrier can- celed 16,700 flights over the holiday season at an estimated cost of between $725 and $825 million (around half to cover refunds, the rest for reimburse- ments). This total equals the amount that Southwest earned in the first nine months of the year. The cancelations equaled the total for the preceding 10 months (which had already drawn White House ire due to poor, post- COVID performance). The opaque cost of bad press will certainly push the burden much higher. The exact number of affected passengers has not been disclosed, but a fair estimate has it at seven figures. As much as a
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half-a-percent of the total population of the United States was impacted.
The triggering incident was related to a “bomb cyclone” of freezing weather and wind. The severe conditions satu- rated large swaths of the United States, creating chaos for national air carri- ers. Yet for Southwest, the disruption extended well past the worst of the weather. There are a few reasons for this. First, Southwest utilizes a point- to-point network (as opposed to the more traditional hub-and-spoke of com- petitors). This model can be cumber- some when confronted with scheduling discontinuities. Air crews are spread randomly around the country, making recovery more difficult when cancella- tions occur en masse. Secondly – and more relevant to the ensuing meltdown – Southwest utilizes an antiquated
PHOTOS BY AUTHOR
network to reassign displaced f light crews. In a world increasingly reliant on automated solutions, aging technol- ogy has proven to be an Achilles heel.
The winter storm began on Decem- ber 21. But the worst of the cancella- tions did not occur until the 26 when over 50 percent of Southwest f lights were canceled. The technological melt- down drew a harsh response from the Department of Transportation. This rapidly evolved into an egg-on-face moment for the FAA. A week and a half after Southwest had unraveled the glitch, a nationwide ground stop was issued due to a failure in the govern- ment's Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) network. The ground stop wreaked havoc on early morning departures. It resulted in just shy of 7,000 delays and 1,100 cancelations. A nationwide