Member-only story
The Southwest Meltdown
After years of preparation, it finally came to fruition
“Southwest canceled more than 2,900 flights on Monday; scrapped about 2,500 each day for the next two days, more than 60 percent of its schedule; and said it could take days to fully restore normal operations”.
Nearly a month ago, the entire world knew that the winter is going to be devastatingly freezing. Weather alarms kept ringing up and down the country, day after day.
That means you really don’t have the ‘I wish I knew’ excuse. It is more of a ‘you knew and you did nothing scenario.’ Southwest deserves all the brickbats that has been thrown at them and possibly even a bit more.
Southwest CEO apologized for the meltdown, but the damage to the company's reputation has already been done. It is a shame really because Southwest could have easily avoided this. Instead of leading the way, they fell into the wide hole they dug for themselves.
Southwest’s meltdown can be attributed to four key reasons
The seeds were sown during the pandemic
After ticket sales collapsed in 2020 due to the pandemic, most of the airlines offered workers buyouts and early retirements that contributed to staffing shortages.
