Summer is something of a test fr
Southwest Airlines and perhaps e
vindication for its CEO, Bob Jo.
You've been on the job since,
what, February 22,
right? Little over year?
And that first year
was not what anyone expected.
16,000 flights canceled
around Christmas after winter
weather overwhelmed Southwest.
Then in April, a computer firewall failed,
delaying 1700 flights on a random Tuesday,
unusual for an operation
known for its efficiency.
We landed a seat next to
the CEO on a recent flight.
People are asking what in the
world is going on at Southwest?
What do you tell those customers? You know,
the firewall issue is very uniq.
We we we have redundancy.
We had a firewall that failed
and then it's backup failed.
We don't underinvest in technol.
We're putting $1.3 billion a
year in technology this year.
But we are accelerating things.
It was just a really unique eve.
How confident are you that your customers
will not see a repeat of the cancellations
in December or the delays in Ap?
I'm very confident that we have plans
in place to make sure that thats
not happen and those plans willl
be accomplished by. Winter of 2.
There, there can't be a reoccurrence of
what happened in December. There cannot.
In December. Southwest was
just not ready for the weather,
especially in Denver where it flies Most.
Southwest did not have
enough DE icing trucks,
DE icing pads, engine covers,
tangible things that other
airlines had the problems casca.
Pilots ran out of hours.
They could work in a day.
Planes were out of place.
16,000 flights eventually cance.
I saw that that almost half of
your customers who were affected
in December have since rebooked
more than half, more than half.
Do you think you lost any custos
or do you think the rest of thoe
are going to rebook by, you
know, the we watch our bookings
of course every single day.
Right now there's no evidence tt
customers are booking away from.
We gave away over 2,000,000
gestures of goodwill,
basically 25,000 Rapid Rewards points.
Customers began booking them within minutes.
They really, these are these
are customers that we disrupted
and we've seen a record level
of redemption of those gestures.
Back in January after you guys e
these out, they booked, we gave out, we
saw them begin to redeem
those literally immediately.
And we're seeing a record
level of those gestures.
A goodwill book which tells me r
customers are sticking with us
in Denver, Southwest has almost doubled
its deicing trucks up to 22 now it added
a third more deicing pads as we.
Same in Chicago, 22 deicing trus
there at Midway and the airline
is trying to triple the number
of deicing pads it has there.
Despite the investments,
though, the problems are not
yet behind Southwest. The
Department of Transportation has that open
inquiry into what happened in December.
They do. Have they talked to you
personally about what happened?
We're cooperating with them fuly
like you would expect we always would.
I have talked to the secretary a
number of times just to update .
On our progress and how we're doing, how
about the DOJ? I didn't realize the DOJ,
the Department of Justice was looking
into this as well until a few weeks ago.
I think a headline popped on th.
How big of a deal is that?
It's a headline. But today thers
nothing from the DOJ will work h
any government entity that the t
that that need that we need to.
But there's nothing going on
with the DOJ, just the dot.
And that directly contradicts several
recent news reports saying the
Department of Justice is investigating.
What keeps you up at night whenu
look towards the summer schedul?
I'm not nervous. The we're as
staffed as we have ever been,
so that doesn't worry me.
But you know, you have things like ATC,
just managing the traffic.
That's probably the biggest iss.
ATC is air traffic control and the FAA
warns there is a shortage of controllers,
especially in New York and Washington,
that could create delays for every airline.
But Southwest says it is ready for the test.
But summer travel is about to bg
in Dallas. I'm Jason Whiteley.