Southwest's COO will faces questions from a Senate panel on Thursday over the airline's holiday meltdown.
panel on Thursday over the carrier's December meltdown that stranded hundreds of thousands of travelers around Christmas.
"In hindsight, we did not have enough winter operational resilience," Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson said in written testimony, which was reviewed by CNBC, ahead of Senate Commerce CommitteeSouthwest canceled more than 16,700 flights between Dec. 21 and Dec. 31 as its crew-scheduling software couldn't keep pace with massive flight disruptions from brutal coast-to-coast winter weather.
Watterson plans to tell the committee that the carrier has made short-term improvements to communicate more easily with crews when things go wrong and has improved tools that keep track of the operation's stability. With those mitigation tools, "we are confident in our flight network and the schedules we have published for sale," Watterson plans to say, according to the testimony. "The upgrade to the Crew software will equip us to better handle recovery from a mass cancellation event."
Committee Chair Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., called the hearing as political pressure mounts over a host of flight disruptions last year that drove up the cost of trips, if not derailed them, for thousands of consumers.
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