Southwest Hopes to Avoid Another Meltdown with Upgrades to Equipment and Staffing
byDaniel McCarthy/After canceling more than 16,000 flights during the last 10 days of 2022 because of operational missteps during Winter Storm Elliott, Southwest Airlines says its investing $1.3 billion to ensure it never happens again.
Southwest CEO this week, in a filing ahead of itspresentation at the J.P. Morgan Industrials Conference, said that the carrier is planning a major investment
Southwest, in its filing, introduces a three-prong “Tactical Action Plan” that it hopes will help it avoid another major meltdown similar to the one it experienced in December 2022 when Winter Storm Elliot thwarted its normal operations forced it to cancel thousands of flights across the U.S.
The plan calls for Southwest to:
- Improve Winter Operations– the carrier says it will increase the number of available deicing trucks, procure more deicing pads and equipment, implement new weather applications to enhance deicing holdover times, and boost its winter staffing levels.
- Enhance Cross-Team Collaboration- 西南航空将改善“网络计划和网络操作控制之间的一致性”,改善警报和决策支持工具。
- Accelerate Other Investments——Skysolver升级软件,其飞行操作programming, and improve staff communication.
Ultimately, Southwest says it will spend $1.3 billion on the upgrades and maintenance of its IT systems, including upgrading that crew scheduling software and phone system, two things that failed during that December holiday travel period.
It hopes that the deicing upgrades, the better communication among its crew, and the other upgrades will help it avoid another December situation.
“We understand the root causes that led to the holiday disruption, and we’re validating our internal review with the third-party assessment. Now, we expect to mitigate the risk of an event of this magnitude ever happening again,” Southwest CEO Bob Jordan said in a news release.
“工作正在进行中,实施了为明年冬天准备的行动项目,并已经完成了一些项目。”
Southwest says that it is already on pace to improve operational performance prior to this announcement.
根据该文件,自2023年以来,西南航空公司在美国航空公司开始的准时绩效中排名第二,低于三角洲。这是2022年的四个景点。它还说,近50%的传单受“ 12月的运营中断”的影响,此后已预订或飞行在西南航空上,其快速奖励会员资格的成员资格越来越高于其落后12个月平均水平的步伐。