Southwest to tell U.S. lawmakers ‘we messed up’ during holiday meltdown

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson will apologize on Thursday before a U.S. Senate committee over the holiday meltdown that led to the cancellation of more than 16,000 flights and pledge to make changes to ensure that there will be no repeats.

“Let me be clear: we messed up. In hindsight, we did not have enough winter operational resilience,” Watterson’s written testimony for a U.S. Senate Commerce Committee hearing seen by Reuters says. “We are doing a system-wide review of our preparedness for winter operations and will implement any measures necessary to mitigate the risk of an event like this occurring in the future.”

Watterson’s written testimony offers a new apology: “It caused a tremendous amount of anguish, inconvenience, and missed opportunities for our customers and employees.”

The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA) will tell the committee that the low-cost carrier’s “overconfidence” in planning and a “systemic failure to provide modern tools” were responsible for the December meltdown that the union said stranded 2 million passengers.

SWAPA President Casey Murray will tell the Senate Commerce Committee that pilots “have been sounding the alarm about (Southwest’s) inadequate crew scheduling technology and outdated operational processes for years. Unfortunately, those warnings were summarily ignored,” according to written testimony seen by Reuters.

In his testimony, Murray blames the meltdown on “poor planning, systemic under-investment in crew scheduling technology and processes, and a failure to collaborate with frontline employees.”

Southwest is facing an investigation by the U.S. Transportation Department over its flight scheduling and handling of more than 16,700 cancellations that disrupted travel plans for about 2 million customers and is estimated to have cost it more than $1 billion.

The committee had asked Chief Executive Bob Jordan to testify but Southwest told Reuters that he had a prior commitment. Jordan is in Baltimore today for an employee rally.