Southwest Isn't "Back To Normal"

Yesterday I linked to what amounts to a consensus account of corporate crises and successful vs unsuccessful responses. So far, what we're seeing is an unsuccessful response from Southwest. All reports are that, whatever specifically happened in Denver, the meltdown started there and quickly spread to other major Southwest airports. But as of this morning, Denver still isn't fixed. According to the New York Post,

Travel issues continued to snowball at Denver International Airport on Monday after over 600 flights were canceled or delayed because icy conditions and poor visibility plagued the runway, according to reports.

The Denver Post reported roughly 650 flights were affected, which could not have come at a worse time.

According to CBS News yesterday afternoon,

Embattled air carrier Southwest Airlines again canceled dozens of flights after returning to a more regular flying schedule following a winter storm-related meltdown last week.

Southwest as of Monday afternoon had canceled 160, or 3%, of its flights, the most of any American airline, according to tracking site FlightAware. Another 422, or 10% of its scheduled flights were delayed. The majority of disrupted flights were scheduled to fly in or out of Denver International Airport.

A Denver TV station went into considerably more detail on the situation this morning. YouTube won't let me link directly to the story, but it can be found if you click here. At 0:09,

The Southwest Airlines disaster is continuing this week, and many passengers are still waiting for their bags. When or how they can get their bags at all depends on who they ask.

They shift to an on-the-scene reporter who interviews a woman who'd tried to fly from Denver to Milwaukee over the holidays but had her flight canceled. However, her luggage stayed at the Denver airport, where it's being held in an overflow area. At 0:43,

Like thousands of Southwest passengers across the country, Pat Tufta [phonetic] has spent the past week trying to get her luggage. After Southwest canceled her flight to Milwaukee, she had to book a last-minute flight on United.

"A loaded plane that was never going to take off with all of our luggage, everyone from that flight I can tell you has not seen their luggage since. And then when I ckecked in with customer service agents in Milwaukee and over the phone at DIA on Saturday when I had to return back to Denver, they told me it was sitting in the hangar, and there was nothing I could do about it."

Instead, she was told her bag would have to fly first to Milwaukee before shipped back and returned to her. She reached out again to customer service over the phone, who agreed the process sounds ridiculous.

"The person I talked to actually chuckled and said that doesn't make sense. You need to talk to a supervisor. But I said, well, I can't."

Now, a week later, Pat says she doesn't know when she'll get her bag and is frustrated with the inconsistencies. We asked Southwest whether it plans to reevaluate this policy and why there has been a lot of mixed messaging. A spokesperson did not answer those questions and said this in an empty statement about working around the clock to reunite passengers with their luggage.

I worked for a utility during a corporate crisis of its own after the 1994 Northridge, CA earthquake, in which, although service to millions in its area was affected, company spokesmen initially denied there were any problems and in fact talked condescendingly to reporters, implying they didn't understand the company's business. The company line changed in a matter of hours, and the initial spokesman left the company the following year.

What we're seeing so far from Southwest are glib and general statements -- the Denver reporter characterized one as "empty" -- that the airline is "back to normal", except that "people are working around the clock", but there seems to be a refusal, even in the airline's press relations office, to acknowledge there are serious continuing problems, especially with delayed baggage and the continuing need to cancel flights at Denver.

Another example of bad crisis communication is Southwest's denial that that n Denver ramp agents quit in response to the December 21 Chris Johnson memo, when the continuing reported cancellations and delays in Denver suggest there's been a staffing issue of some sort there that still isn't resolved. The press release below from the Transport Workers Union Local 555 website posted on December 28 strongly suggests there were serious matters taken up following the Chris Johnson memo (click on the image for a larger copy):

Here's my tentative take. When the weather turned bad over much of the US on December 21, the Denver ramp agents found themselves working in extreme cold, and some developed frostbite. At that point, I would imagine that some either requested modified working conditions, left work claiming to have developed frostbite, or both. This was reported to Southwest Vice President Johnson in Dallas, and in a panicked meeting with other suits, it was determined that a crackdown was in order. If anyone was claiming frostbite as a reason to leave work, then they'd need a doctor's note or be fired.

Checking news reports on the December bomb cyclone, this started on December 21, the same day the memo went out, and that says it was issued in a panic by the suits at Mahogany Row, who apparently understood the impact a staffing shortage in Denver would have on Southwest's operations. However, they failed to run this by legal, who would at minimum have told them the policy violated Colorado law.

My guess is that as soon as the Denver ramp workers got the memo, they went to the union, who quickly spelled out the consequences of any enforcement of that policy to Mahogany Row, which certainly would have been mass resignations followed by a class action suit demanding reinstatement, damages, and the threat of further labor action. Whether any ramp workers resigned, individually or en masse, isn't clear at this point. If they had, though, they would have had a legal case for constructive dismissal and likely would have won.

My surmise, given the likely threat from the union, is that a solution was quickly worked out, whereby the Denver ramp workers would have immediate improved conditions, including rotation off outdoor work, and the memo would have been quietly finessed. This would be one explanation for the continued staffing problems at Denver, even if there had been no mass resignations. Since lawyers on both sides would have been involved, the press release would have been carefully worded, but it sounds very much as though Southwest, and Chris Johnson, had to back down big time, but not soon enough to avoid turning the situation into a major crisis for the company.

Which is to say the Southwest crisis is by no means over. The same idiots who created the crisis are still running the show.