The Southwest's holiday breakdown has continued to draw media attention.
An audience of senators heard from Southwest CEO Andrew Watterson on Wednesday regarding the airline's operational blunder that resulted in the cancellation of nearly 17,000 flights and left about one million passengers stranded over the winter holidays.
Before the Senate Commerce Committee, Watterson, the carrier's chief operational officer, expressed his immediate regret for the incident and that Southwest was "truly regretful."
Let me be clear.
He said, "We made a mistake.
"We lacked sufficient resilience for winter operations."
Watterson blamed the carrier's December financial collapse on subpar winter operations at the request of Congress.
Southwest intends to increase its investment in de-icing trucks and other technology systems in order to enhance its winter operations.
The cost to the airline of this effort is not yet known.
According to Watterson, "We feel our winter operations resilience was the main reason and that will take longer to address. So we will focus on that for the majority of our time."
In order to update its outdated IT infrastructure, Watterson continued, Southwest plans to invest $1.3 billion.
He said that on Friday, new software that would assist in preventing the scheduling issues that partially contributed to their problems would be added to the airline's crew scheduling system.
Casey Murray, the head of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, also gave testimony at the hearing and claimed that pilots had been warning Southwest for years about their obsolete equipment.
History repeats itself because people don't learn from it.
Southwest is prone to repetition, Murray noted.
"Unfortunately, despite numerous chances, Southwest Airlines management did not pay attention to its pilots and front line staff who foresaw this catastrophe."
Senators quizzed Watterson about pilots raising the alarm about outdated technology, but the Southwest executive was unable to explain why the airline disregarded the warning flags in favor of spending money on new technology and improved winter gear.
Southwest failed to recover from winter storm Elliott, and from December 21 to December 31, it had to cancel over 17,000 flights.
While other airlines were able to quickly resume operations after the storm, Southwest's outmoded technology and staff mismanagement led to an operational collapse that lasted for more than a week.
According to Watterson, during the incident, Southwest did not know the whereabouts of its personnel and was unable to reach some of its pilots or flight attendants; some crew members were out of communication for as long as 17 hours, according to the evidence.
Due to a large number of stranded customers, several of them lost their luggage and were unable to contact customer service representatives to rebook their flights.
200 bags or so are still unclaimed.
Due to the mishap, Southwest started compensating all impacted passengers in addition to an extra 25,000 Rapid Rewards points.
According to Watterson, there are still around 11,000 compensation cases open.
Southwest suffered significant financial losses as a result of the collapse, with its fourth-quarter earnings suffering a $220 million quarterly loss.
The airline calculated the cost of the widespread cancellations at $800 million.
The Department of Transportation is also looking into Southwest's flight plans in relation to the holiday fiasco to determine whether they were unrealistic.
Additionally, the operational disaster at Southwest prompted new calls in Washington for the airline industry to be subjected to greater regulations.
Sens. Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, both Democrats, reintroduced legislation this week that would strengthen passenger safeguards in the case of operational failures, aircraft delays, and cancellations.
Additionally pushing for consumer protections was Commerce Committee Chairwoman Maria Cantwell (D-Washington).
Making sure that consumers don't get the raw deal is a crucial part of improving, she added.
Republican lawmakers, though, have not been as eager to enact rules.
The committee's ranking senator, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), warned that additional regulation of the aviation sector would result in fewer flights and higher fares.
Cruz stated, "The Department of Transportation now intends to look into the wisdom of the entire timetable, armchair quarterbacking the scheduling and operations of an entire industry.
Simply stupid, I say.
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