Southwest Airlines is paying the price for canceling about half of its schedule between Dec. 20 and Dec. 29 – more than 16,700 flights during the busy holiday season — perhaps the worst time of the year to strand customers.
“If it had happened in July, it’d be one thing. But they were the airline Grinch that stole Christmas,” said airline consultant Michael Boyd.
So will Southwest customers who were affected by the service meltdown forgive the airline and return? Many already have.
During last month’s earnings call, Southwest said that of the passengers who were affected by the problem who were compensated with 25,000 bonus points in their frequent flyer accounts, 25% have already booked flights for future travel on the airline.
Some of those passengers are using the points for travel. Others are paying cash for their tickets.
“I take that as a sign of confidence that customers understand,” said Ryan Green, Southwest’s chief commercial officer, to investors last month. “They understand that we messed up there. We did everything that we could to make it right, and that 1/4 of them already have future travel booked on Southwest.”
Here are some reasons why experts think the overwhelming majority of Southwest customers may forgive the airline:
Southwest responded well after the meltdown: The airline did a fairly good job reaching out to refund fares on canceled flights, awarding bonus frequent flier points and compensating flyers for their out-of-pocket expenses. That compensation covers not only the cost of travel on other airlines but also car rentals, hotels and meals.
It is improving its crew scheduling system: So the problem won’t be repeated. And it has committed to a long overdue upgrade to its computer system which should help it in the long-term.
It had a good market reputation: Prior to the crisis, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics shows Southwest had the lowest rate of complaints per passenger, only 1 per 100,000 passengers, compared 2.24 for Delta, 4.1 for United and 4.6 for American. All of that is helping it to weather customer backlash.
Lack of other options: Southwest is the largest US domestic airline and it specializes in secondary, somewhat smaller airports. For a passenger who prefers Chicago Midway Airport or Love Field in Dallas to the those cities’ massive primary airports of O’Hare and Dallas Fort Worth, there really is no alternative to flying Southwest. And that’s especially true if you want direct flights rather than changing planes at one of those other airlines’ hubs.
And the fact that other airlines have suffered their own travel woes in recent years is probably also working in Southwest’s favor, even if those other meltdowns were as massive, and badly timed, as the one at Southwest.
