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U.S. senators blast Southwest holiday meltdown

STORY: U.S. Senators from both sides of the aisle blasted Southwest Airlines at a hearing Thursday for the airline’s December meltdown that caused more than 16-thousand flights cancellations at the height of the holiday season… in what one lawmaker called an “unmitigated disaster.”Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who represents Texas where Southwest is based, said it was an epic screw up.“Many people understandably were deeply frustrated at not being able to get where they wanted to go and not being able to be with their family. And I have had many conversations with senior leadership Southwest and am confident they understand it was an epic screw up”The airline blamed much of the trouble on the bad weather but acknowledged it made mistakes and that technology issues were a factor. Southwest Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson.”Let me be clear: we messed up. And I would like to explain to you how we messed up. In hindsight, we did not have enough winter operations resiliency… from where and how we de-ice aircraft to the cold resistency of our ground support, equipment, and infrastructure. Our high rates of cancellations in Denver and Chicago where 25-percent of our flight crews are based, caused our crews to be displaced”Watterson said the carrier is introducing an updated crew scheduling system on Friday to address a specific failure during the debacle.At the hearing, 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 treatmentDemocratic Senator, Maria Cantwell:“Two million Southwest passengers suffered consequences, separated from family and friends, not to mention their luggage and hundreds of thousands of people stranded at airports across the country. We know that many of them had no clear instructions about what to do next.”Pilots at Southwest told lawmakers Thursday the debacle was all but inevitable. Casey Murray is the President of the Southwest Airline Pilots Association.“What our pilots saw and have known for years is that Southwest struggles to manage nearly any disruption regardless of the cause. Our recent history in the data shows a pattern of increasingly disruptive operational failures, missed prioritization of resources, and worst of all, a hollow leveraging of our culture to cover up poor management decisions.”The airline has already paid hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation and reimbursements to affected passengers and will cut 2022 bonuses to executives when they are awarded in March.