Southwest Circles The Wagons

Yesterday I noted that in the wake of Southwest Airlines's Christmas meltdown, Mahogany Row gave themselves promotions and almost certainly bonuses. And over the recent long weekend, CEO Bob Jordan backed off the airline's own mea culpas at the time of the crisis:

Southwest Airlines' CEO said aircraft engines froze and jetways wouldn't move after a storm caused an operational meltdown that led to thousands of flights being canceled, The New York Times reported.

. . . The CEO's comments come a day after a group of shareholders filed a class action lawsuit against Jordan, its CFO, executive chairman and the airline, claiming that it hid problems that caused its meltdown.

. . . Jordan denied that its technology failed and told the Times it had just experienced an "overwhelming volume." He added that it hired Oliver Wyman, a consulting firm, to independently investigate the event, per the report, and reiterated that he was responsible for what happened.

We may assume that Oliver Wyman will echo those views in its final report. But this is a turnaround from Southwest's own version of events as the meltdown happened last month. As of December 27, this was the story:

Southwest Airlines has blamed its operational meltdown on the busy holiday weekend and the powerful winter storm but said on Tuesday its antiquated scheduling system also played a role.

. . . Since its original statement last updated on Tuesday, Southwest has added to its reasoning for the chaos, telling Insider, "we have had issues with our scheduling tools, causing a scheduling issue."

"We were fully staffed and prepared for the approaching holiday weekend when the severe weather swept across the continent, where Southwest is the largest carrier in 23 of the top 25 travel markets in the US," the carrier said in a statement. "These operational conditions forced daily changes to our flight schedule at a volume and magnitude that still has the tools our teams use to recover the airline operating at capacity."

Reports at the time noted that the delays and cancellations at Southwest were far worse than those at other airlines. The December 27 story at the link continues,

Other airlines, like United Airlines and American Airlines, largely avoided this. This is because their systems are more modern and can handle the workload quicker than Southwest's can. The latter's systems failed to keep up because flight attendants use a system largely reliant on phone lines, [Southwest flight attendant union president Lyn] Montgomery told KHOU. That system can get clogged up, forcing crews to wait on hold for hours waiting for a new assignment.

Since the meltdown, Southwest has worked on restoring customer and employee loyalty by offering credits for future travel. The story linked in yesterday's post pointed out,

The airline has also given customers some free frequent flyer points to make them feel better about daring to fly Southwest again. I even received an email from Southwest this week that announced: "Big Sale, itty bitty fares."

I wonder whether any customers were ittily bittily annoyed by the enticement of $49 flights from an airline that has so let them down.

Please, though, let's not forget Southwest's employees. The airline gave them $400 worth of bonus points to compensate for the "physical and emotional toll" of a mess caused by management's refusal to invest in crew scheduling software from this century.

From the start of this whole episode, I couldn't help but be reminded of the "courtship" or "honeymoon phase" in the cycle of abusive relationships.

In many cases, the person who committed the abuse will try to make things right by offering gifts and being overly kind and loving. The reconciliation period is often referred to as a "honeymoon stage" because it mimics the beginning of a relationship when people are on their best behavior.

When the person who experienced the abuse is in this phase, the extra love and kindness from their partner triggers a reaction in their brain that releases feel-good and love hormones known as dopamine and oxytocin. This release of hormones makes them feel closer to their partner and as if things are back to normal.

What's intriguing here is that Southwest grew by relying on employee cooperation and goodwill to build a unique corporate culture that customers found appealing, especially in the days of peanut snacks, cheap drinks, and singing flight attendants. Those days ended a decade ago and more, but customers stayed due to low fares and a generous rewards program, while employees had built up seniority and benefits and were reluctant to leave.

Business Insider as of last Friday, before CEO Jordan''s New York Times interview over the weekend, quoted him as follows:

Last week the airline's CEO, Bob Jordan, took responsibility in an interview with Reuters, saying that there were a lot of reasons that this happened "but it's on me at the end of the day."

He added that "it just can't happen again."

But that was apparently still back in the honeymoon phase. Of course it's going to happen again. The question is whether it will happen again and again and again.