Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan said in email to loyalty program members that the airline has budgeted more than $1 billion for IT upgrades this year to “further reduce the risk of future operational disruptions,” including supplemental workers.
“They were the airline Grinch that stole Christmas,” said Mike Boyd, president of aviation consulting firm Boyd Group International.
In his email to loyalty members, Jordan said “virtually all” bags that were still separated from their owners had been returned by the end of last week, and “nearly all” refunds had been processed. Workers are still handling “tens of thousands of reimbursement requests” every day.“We fell short of your expectations and the high standards we have of ourselves, and for that we are deeply sorry,” Jordan wrote.
Boyd said Jordan appears to be taking necessary steps to address the issues that plagued the airline.Travel analyst Henry Harteveldt, president of Atmosphere Research Group, said he would like to see more specifics from Southwest, such as the timeline for a review and what precise technology improvements are being made.
Harteveldt said he believes the issues shook the company’s leader and board “to their cores” and that they realize they will have to make smarter investments in their technology moving forward. “I think that Southwest is committed to doing everything it can to keep a disruption like the one we saw in December from occurring again,” he said. “I think we have to be fair to the airline in acknowledging that there’s a lot of work necessary to do that and the process is going to be one of incremental progress and improvement.”
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