Southwest Airlines continues to work out holiday chaos

By KOB

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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – As the holiday travel season wraps up, Southwest Airlines is trying hard to put the last week behind them.

A nationwide meltdown put the normally reliable airline in a tough spot with thousands and thousands of flight cancellations.

There were zero departure cancellations to report Monday at the Albuquerque International Sunport for Southwest Airlines.

It’s a much different picture compared to last week when frustrated travelers waited for answers, and lost bags piled up in baggage claim.

Southwest resumed “normal” operations last Friday after a week of disruptions and more than 10,000 canceled flights across the country.

“My personal apology is the first step in making things right,” said Ryan Green, CCO of Southwest Airlines. 

Following mid-week apologies and explanations, Southwest Airlines CEO, Bob Jordan, told employees over the weekend:

“We’ll move forward with lessons learned here, as we always do. We have plans to invest in tools and technology and processes, but there will be immediate work to understand what happened.”

“You have our word that we will commit to the necessary resources to quickly examine and bolster our strategy for continuous improvement in our processes, our systems, and more.”

Flight tracking website FlightAware reported 26 cancellations for Southwest Sunday, 133 cancellations Monday, and seven so far for Tuesday. 

Industry experts say it’s going to take a lot for Southwest to truly get back to normal.

“There are still thousand and thousands of travelers on Southwest who had their flights canceled and who need to be rebooked and re-accommodated and so as a result you are seeing Southwest flights going out extremely full,” said Scott Keyes with Scott’s Cheap Flights.