Southwest hires consultancy to assess Christmas flight cancellations

In a January 17 letter to customers, Southwest Airlines chief executive Bob Jordan apologised for “operational issues” that “greatly disrupted” Christmas travel and announced the hiring of consultancy Oliver Wyman to assess what happened and recommend measures to prevent a recurrence. In late December 2022, Southwest cancelled almost 17,000 flights, with its IT system failing to cope with the impact on schedules of a severe winter storm. The carrier said it expects to lose around US $800 million due to the cancellations, as well as related refunds and reimbursements of affected customers. “As of the end of last week, we