Funviralpark After more than 15,000 flights were canceled over the Christmas holidays and thousands of travelers were rushed, Southwest says it has finally caught up.
Airlines appeared to be back on track on Friday, with just 41 cancellations after at least 2,362 on Thursday.
In an exclusive interview with Good Morning America, the company’s CEO, Bob Jordan, said his airline was “off to a great start.”
“I’m looking at the stats and we’re launching the East Coast and we’re doing a great job. A full schedule of over 3,900 flights,” Jordan said. “I am confident that we can execute a very tight operation today.”
The travel disruptions began just days before Christmas as winter weather hit parts of the United States. Thousands of passengers were stranded and some even missed their trip entirely.
Southwest Airlines said it was pledging to refund customers for canceled flights and other travel-related expenses, including hotels, car rentals and even flights booked with other airlines. .
Other costs will be handled on a case-by-case basis, officials said.
“Our ambition is to go above and beyond. We always look after our customers and that’s our 51-year history here at Southwest Airlines,” said Jordan. “We go through and take care of things like car rentals, hotel rooms, meals, bookings for other airline customers, etc. So all of this is here when it comes to reimbursing customers and handling this well. Be part of what we cover. Problems.”
Refunds are currently underway, but officials acknowledge that it will take “weeks” to clear the backlog.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called on Southwest Airlines to process refunds in a timely manner, saying his agents “assured” airlines to comply with their refund obligations and said “they are required to Failure to do so could result in “penalties” for airlines, he said. take care of passengers. ”
In a letter to Southwest Airlines earlier this week, Buttigieg said, “Southwest Airlines will not allow passengers to cancel their flights for any reason whatsoever if the airline cancels or makes substantial changes to their flights. Unless we accept the rebooking, we will have to issue a refund as soon as possible.” “This means that Southwest Airlines must issue a refund within 7 business days if the passenger paid by credit card and within 20 days if he paid by cash, check or other means. means that.”
Winter storms have affected the Southwest far more than their competitors, with Jordan saying that the Southwest “had an impact beyond the storm.”
“We had record temperatures that caused jetways to freeze, aircraft to freeze, de-icing fluid to freeze, etc. Trying to solve the problem in so many places makes it very difficult. , we expect the aircraft and passengers and crew to continue to move, but when everything stops in so many places, it becomes very difficult,” Jordan said. Just keeping the airline running was the extent of the problem we were trying to solve.”
With the holiday season just around the corner, Southwest now faces the challenge of regaining customer trust. Beyond safety, Jordan said, “nothing is more important” than taking care of customers.
“This is affecting so many people, so many customers during the holidays. It is affecting our employees and I am very sorry for that. I love it, I love my employees, and it really affected them, so there are few ways to apologize enough, it’s a plan,” Jordan said. “There will be many lessons to be learned from this. In order to prevent such a thing from happening again.”
Sam Sweeney of ABC News contributed to this report.
