Southwest CEO Gary Kelly said the airline is working on on the operational issues 24/7. And hopefully, here by the end of the third quarter and the fourth quarter, we'll be back to where we wanted to be.'' "I think we'll be better in August than we were in July. "That will give us more recovery options than we have today,'' he said.
#SOUTHWEST ONTIME RECORD FULL#
Van de Ven said the situation should continue to improve as summer storms "disappear'' and planes are less full as summer vacation season ends. "It was a bit messy as we throttled down our activity (last year), and it doesn't surprise me that it's a bit messy as we're accelerating it,'' Van de Ven said. To address the situation, Van de Ven said Southwest in the short term is offering employees incentives to work on scheduled days off or is adding workers in several of its large cities. The increased delays and cancellations mean passengers are stuck for longer than normal, so Southwest, which generally eschews late-night flying, has been operating longer hours than typical. Also hurting: The airline is still smaller than it was in summer 2019 – with 16% fewer flights – so when bad weather and other flight issues arise, it has fewer flights available for passenger rebooking. Southwest said it built in extra time between flights, called turn times, to prepare for the expected post-vaccination travel blitz, but it wasn't enough. "That is just a monumental increase, and it was done in a short period of time,'' he said.Īirline mask mandate: Southwest CEO says airlines not pushing for an extension Flights departing Southwest's major cities are leaving 90% full. The number of passengers and the bags they are checking nearly doubled, he said. Southwest operated 650 more daily round-trip flights in June than it did in March, a 25% increase, Van de Ven said. The airline said it's the sudden surge of travel that arrived as it was "still ramping up the operation,'' an operation without enough wiggle room as it turned out. They said they are seeing only pockets of hiring issues, mainly for ground service workers, including baggage handlers. Southwest executives said it is not a matter of staffing shortages, as businesses across the country are reporting, saying they were staffed appropriately when the summer began. The issues go beyond Southwest's well-documented flight woes in June, first from several weather and technology glitches, and then from more bad weather and what the flight attendants union said was a high number of sick calls. "But we do expect to see improvement by early next year," he told the Tribune.Check your reservation: American Airlines just slashed nearly 1,000 July flights as operation woes mountįlight woes: American, Southwest airlines surge in flight delays could hint at hard summer for travelers Why is Southwest delaying and canceling flights this summer?
Parrish said those changes will take some time to implement. Southwest has recently changed its schedule to add more time for such in-between flight tasks as unloading passengers and preparing the plane for the next group of passengers. Southwest spokesman Brian Parrish blamed delays, especially in the months of August, September and October, on "a combination of unexpected summer weather and changes made to our schedule." "Southwest schedules its planes so tightly, to maximize efficiency and keep fares low, that even a slight delay early in the morning can snowball into a larger delay through the balance of the day," Harteveldt said.Īnother reason: Southwest has expanded its network into congested airports in cities such as New York. Most other airlines tend to pad their gate-to-gate times, according to a recent report by the Office of Inspector General of the Transportation Department.
That ends up hurting the carrier when there are weather or other problems. Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst at Hudson Crossing, told the Tribune that part of the reason for the deteriorating record is that Southwest tends to schedule flights close together to maximize efficiency.
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