The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has begun investigating Southwest Airlines for allegedly selling too many seats on flights in December, which led to roughly 16,000 cancellations.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the federal agency is probing into Southwest's scheduling practices to see if the airline has been "unfair and deceptive" in booking more flights than it could realistically deliver.
"DOT will leverage the full extent of its investigative and enforcement power to ensure consumers are protected and this process will continue to evolve as the Department learns more," a spokeswoman told the Journal.
Southwest canceled more than 16,700 flights between Dec. 21-31, 2022 — otherwise known as the peak-holiday period covering Christmas Week and leading into New Year's Eve, the Journal reports.
Also around that time, a large swath of the United States had been greatly affected by a major winter storm.
Southwest claimed then the winter storm threw operations into disarray, canceling flights and changing crew assignments that "overwhelmed" the system's software. As such, the airline says it had it to revert to a manual process that was more difficult to negotiate, compared to normal operations, according to the report.
In a Jan. 17 statement, Southwest CEO Bob Jordan said the airline was working to stabilize its operation after the December meltdown, and subsequently wanted to assure the public the problems would not occur again.
"During the week between Christmas and New Year's Day, our Customers and Employees — including some of you — endured operational issues that greatly disrupted holiday and end-of-year plans. We want you to know that we are making every effort to prevent that from happening again," said Jordan.
"Emerging from some of the most challenging days in our Company's history, we are highly focused on our customers, our recovery, and our plan going forward. Our immediate task has been to stabilize our operation, and we are pleased to report that since the disruptions, we've operated our expected flight schedule with the Southwest® Reliability that we've upheld for 51 years," Jordan added.
Southwest also said it is taking immediate actions to better handle crew disruptions and the technology used to manage crew assignments, as well as getting a third-party assessment with an aviation consulting firm, Oliver Wyman, to determine "additional mitigation" measures that could be used in a similar situation.
"We fell short of your expectations and the high standards we have of ourselves, and for that we are deeply sorry," Jordan said in the Southwest statement. "It is our steadfast commitment to make the necessary changes to address the issues we faced and to regain your trust and confidence. We will continue down our path of providing you the exceptional service you expect and deserve from us."
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