Southwest Airlines outlines recovery from operations meltdown late last year

Thousands experienced a Southwest Airlines flight being canceled over the holidays, now the airline wants to fix things

ByCNN
Tuesday, January 17, 2023
Southwest outlines recovery from operations meltdown late last year
After thousands of Southwest Airlines flights were canceled at the end of last year, the airline is outlining its road to recovery.

CHICAGO -- Southwest Airlines is updating customers following its operations meltdown last month.

The airline sent an email to customers Monday night outlining its recovery from the mountain of issues encountered during peak holiday travel.

Southwest said it has returned "virtually all of the bags" and processed almost all refunds, CNN reported.

It has also hired an aviation consulting firm to "complete an assessment of the event and make recommendations of additional mitigation elements for us to consider."

The airline has budgeted more than $1 billion of its annual operating plan on improving and maintaining its IT systems.

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Southwest said it canceled more than 16,000 flights between Dec. 21 and 31, and lost between $725 to $825 million in revenue.