Southwest shambles
Tom Rogan
Until the Mayo Clinic starts using the Novichok nerve agent in place of anesthesia, Southwest Airlines will retain the corporate award for the most rapid and catastrophic self-destruction of its brand.
As of last week, after all, holding on the phone line with Southwest Airlines would mean listening to an array of inane if pleasant recorded messages from happy sounding pilots and other Southwest employees. Callers would hear why they should be happy to wait on hold. “We like you,” the recorded messengers said, adding that Southwest remains the best airline because it allows two free checked bags. As 2022 draws to a close, a bitter headwind now bites. Indeed, Southwest’s former messages bring to mind a warning from Shakespeare’s Henry V: “His jest will savour but of shallow wit, when thousands weep more than did laugh at it.”
Now the jest is dead, replaced by misery. I perhaps exaggerate a touch here, but not by much.
BIDEN SAYS AIRLINES WILL BE ‘HELD ACCOUNTABLE’ OVER FLIGHT CANCELLATIONS
My own saga of holiday travels/travails with Southwest deserves a passing note (if only to identify a passing conflict of interest in writing this article). I have now had two flights canceled by Southwest on both the outgoing and return stages of my travel. In both cases customer service representatives were unable to rebook me in anywhere near acceptable time frames. Passengers on my canceled return flight on Tuesday said that the first available rebooking they had been offered was four days later. Instead of enduring a dozens-long line to speak to a solitary representative (the Southwest phone line wouldn’t even connect), I rebooked with another airline. I intend to make Southwest compensate me for that fare.
Still, this isn’t about me. The statistics tell the tale. The vast majority of domestic flight cancellations are falling at Southwest’s feet. Nor is this about weather. It’s about woeful mismanagement. The other domestic airlines, by and large, have recovered from the recent winter storm. But beset by decades of under-investment in technology and evidently inadequate management, Southwest has been unable to schedule its crews or handle escalating customer service demands. And so we see the lost baggage lines ad infinitum. The massed crowds stuck at airports without even the ability to contact a representative, let alone rebook their flights in good order.
There are occasional rays of light for Southwest. The lone customer service representatives standing post to assist enraged passengers. Of pilots handing out coffee and apologies. It speaks highly of these employees that they have refused to call in sick or shy away from the storm. Still, Southwest’s leadership has clearly and catastrophically failed. It is utterly absurd that CEO Bob Jordan and Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson have not yet committed to resign when the crisis has passed. As CNN reports, Watterson has told employees that “the company’s outdated scheduling software quickly became the main culprit of the cancellations once the storm cleared….”
A rather obvious question follows: why was Watterson not actively updating this software before the crisis? Is it because such action would have taken hard investments and a willingness to buck the bureaucracy? Who knows. But this is leadership failure 101.
While the Department of Transportation is now looking into the situation, it’s unclear whether Southwest will ever be able to recover from this crisis. After all, as its passengers and the public are learning, this is largely a catastrophe of Southwest’s own making.
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