In a memo from Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan to employees, the airline pretty clearly lays out what the issue is: This ultimately comes down to the carrier’s inability to correctly staff flights. My gosh, I feel like I’m living in an alternate reality when American sets the standard for operational reliability, but that’s where we’re at.Īt this point Southwest is just doing a horrible job recovering its operation. For example, Southwest has hubs in similar markets to American (Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, etc.), and yesterday and today American canceled *checks notes*… 0% of its flights. Weather has improved considerably around the country, so this isn’t even directly about weather. However, I can’t remember the last time a major airline had problems to the point that it canceled 60-70% of its flights several days in a row. Over the past couple of years airlines have struggled with staffing shortages, and we’ve seen some real meltdowns. Southwest is canceling most flights today Why is Southwest Airlines operating so unreliably? When all is said and done, well over 15,000 flights will likely have been canceled, impacting millions of passengers. For example, the 64% of flights that have been canceled today amounts to 2,645 flights. The extent to which we’re seeing cancelations here is virtually unheard of. For December 29, 2022, Southwest has already proactively canceled 24% of flights.For December 28, 2022, Southwest has already proactively canceled 61% of flights.So far on December 27, 2022, Southwest had issued with 86% of flights, as it canceled 64% of them and delayed 22% of them (and this is only as of 7PM EST, so I imagine there will be more delays and cancelations).On December 26, 2022, Southwest had issues with 87% of its flights, as it canceled 71% of them and delayed 16% of them.On December 25, 2022, Southwest had issues with 90% of its flights, as it canceled 42% of them and delayed 48% of them.Just how bad have things gotten? According to data from FlightAware: However, while other airlines are starting to recover, Southwest’s situation is nowhere close to being back to normal. Southwest Airlines’ operation has been melting down nationwide over the past several days. Southwest Airlines cancels thousands of flights Is it time for the government to do something?.
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