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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Southwest Airlines faced harsh criticism from U.S. senators at a hearing on Thursday investigating the airline’s meltdown that disrupted travel plans for 2 million customers.
Senators recounted to Southwest a litany of horrendous travel stories: People missing funerals and holiday gatherings, passengers forced to drive for 17 or more hours across the country after flights were canceled and cancer patients who could not get treatment.
The airline and its pilot union offered sharply contrasting reasons for the low-cost carrier’s massive travel disruptions. While Southwest cited weather impacts, the union singled out poor preparation and a failure to modernize technology.
Senator Ted Cruz, the top Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, called the cancellation of more than 16,000 flights “an epic screwup” but said he was confident Southwest executives “are committed to doing everything possible to prevent its recurrence.”
Senator Amy Klobuchar said the massive flight cancellations should not be repeated. “We all know it is unacceptable,” she said.
Southwest Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson acknowledged that the airline made mistakes and that technology issues were a factor. He said the carrier is introducing an updated crew scheduling system on Friday to address a specific failure during the meltdown.
“Let me be clear: we messed up.” After detailing what went wrong, he added that “none of this is an excuse.” He admitted: “There were technology issues during the disruption — we don’t dispute that.”
Commerce Committee chair Maria Cantwell said, “We’re always going to have these weather events and some of us believe they’re going to become more severe. But what we want is to have a system that is ready to address that.”
Cantwell said Southwest Chief Executive Officer Bob Jordan, who had been invited to the hearing, “didn’t want to show up.” Southwest said the hearing conflicted with other commitments, including an employee rally in Baltimore on Wednesday.
The meltdown caused the cancellation of almost 17,000 flights and is estimated to have cost the airline more than $1 billion. It has also prompted a lawsuit from shareholders and a Department of Transportation investigation.
The Dallas-based airline attributed the breakdown in service to a “historic” winter storm, both in size and scale, that caused frozen jet bridges and icy aircraft engines.
Watterson said the airline experienced a “historic event” with a combination of challenges it had not confronted before.
But Southwest’s pilot union, which is in contract negotiations with the airline, blamed the company and its leadership for a “failure” to modernize crew management processes and technology and to prepare for the storm.
Casey Murray, president of the Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) Pilots Association (SWAPA), said that the union has been sounding the alarm about the carrier’s crew scheduling technology and “outdated” operational processes for years.
“Unfortunately, those warnings were summarily ignored,” he said.
The debacle has put Jordan in the eye of a storm as he faces pressure to restore the airline’s credibility and regain the trust of customers just one year after he took the helm. Jordan has apologized and taken responsibility for the troubles, vowing to prevent a repeat.
Murray said that while Jordan inherited a “massive, complex operation held together by duct tape and baling wire,” he must show through actions that the company is serious about change.
