by Donald Wood
Last updated: 11:50 AM ET, Tue March 14, 2023
Southwest Airlines outlined the actions being implemented to strengthen the carrier's operational resiliency for customers and employees.
After a high number of delays and cancellations during the Winter Holiday travel period, Southwest CEO Bob Jordan announced the development of a three-part Tactical Action Plan to boost operational resiliency in key areas.
The airline's existing five-year Operational Modernization Plan, which began in 2022, is also underway and focuses on operational investments and organizational alignment.
"We understand the root causes that led to the holiday disruption, and we're validating our internal review with the third-party assessment," Jordan said. "Now, we expect to mitigate the risk of an event of this magnitude ever happening again.
Southwest will also provide additional communication in the coming weeks about what happened during Winter Storm Elliot and what the company is doing to fix the issues, including a microsite summarizing key findings and mitigation actions.
As part of the carrier's Tactical Action Plan, Southwest will accelerate operational investments, improve its approach to winter operations and align various Network Planning and Network Operations Control Teams under one senior leader for better execution of plans.
"I'm very encouraged by the work underway to address the challenges we faced in December," Southwest Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson said. "Our operational performance this year has been among the best in the industry, and we're committed to completing our action items while also running a safe, reliable operation supported by our legendary customer service that has made us famous throughout our 52-year history."
Earlier this month, Southwest selected Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its preferred cloud provider as the carrier advances its digital transformation initiative. As part of an effort to overhaul its technological systems, working with AWS will help the airline enhance the passenger journey, optimize operations and invest in IT infrastructure.
To avoid the issues faced in December, the carrier will use AWS storage, container and serverless compute services to optimize operational applications that support gate assignments, ground operations, flight operations and aircraft maintenance.
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