Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan says the carrier has a plan to handle winter weather disruptions, just nine months after a meltdown that forced thousands of cancellations and crippled operations during the 2022 holiday season.
At the 11th annual Morgan Stanley Laguna Conference, Jordan said the Dallas-based carrier is investing in more de-icing trucks and has staffed up for the winter time, hiring 9,900 new employees, the majority in operational roles. This December, Southwest plans to fly over 11,000 more flights than it did last year, according to Cirium Diio Mi, a flight tracker.
“I feel very, very prepared for this winter, and all that will be in place by October,” Jordan said.
Southwest, unprepared for the freezing temperatures, ice and snow in late December, was forced to cancel flights and those disruptions cascaded across its network as the company’s technology was unable to keep up with the need to reassign pilots and flight attendants. In the days after the initial weather event, Southwest had to shut down most of its network to reset, putting out more than 2 million passengers during the key holiday travel period. In March, Southwest rolled out a three-part plan focused on improving winter operations, accelerating operational investments and cross-team collaborations.
In the first half of the year, Southwest had 709,073 domestic and international flights scheduled, according to FlightAware. Of those, it canceled 8,696, or 1.2%, the flight tracking data firm reported. That’s in line with competitor American Airlines, which operated 569,714 flights in the first half of the year and also canceled only 1.2%, or 5,552.
Summer also came with a strong performance on both Memorial Day and Labor Day for Southwest. In August, according to Cirium Diio Mi, Southwest flew 128,288 flights, with 74.89% arriving on-time, ranking No. 5 out of North American airlines.
“We had our best Labor Day performance, revenue performance in our history across those four days,” Jordan said. “As you look forward, I mean obviously, business is trailing leisure in terms of demand, but even on the business side, we’re seeing a sequential improvement in business from the second quarter to the third quarter on a year-over-year basis.”
He also mentioned a “new piece of technology” to solve irregular operations.
“One thing that happened with us in December is you repair the flow of the aircraft, then you’re done,” Jordan said. “Then you take that and you repair the flow of the crews. A lot of times those two solutions fight against each other, but we’ve got a new set of technology coming in here in about a month that will solve them together and I’m just I’m very optimistic about what that will do for the operation.”
Jordan reiterated that he feels confident in the carrier’s operations through this year, into 2024. He said he is focused on achieving pre-pandemic operational efficiency. Southwest just unveiled its flight schedule through May 2024.
“It’s about making progress on our returns, our returns on invested capital, our margins,” Jordan said. “And marching our way back to where we have been and will be, which is industry-leading operational performance and industry-leading financial performance.”
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