Southwest Airlines chief operating officer, Andrew Watterson, takes Senate panel’s questions on Christmas meltdown
A top Southwest Airlines executive takes the hot seat in a U.S. Senate committee to answer questions about the airline’s colossal failure at Christmas that lead to more than 16,000 flights canceled and thousands of passengers stranded and left to fend for themselves as they struggled to find alternative transportation home.
Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Chair, Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), lead the questioning, asking Southwest’s Chief Operating Officer, Andrew Watterson, point blank, “Do you understand the public’s frustration with this?” Cantwell and others on the committee also asked Watterson several times what Southwest plans to do to avoid a catastrophe like this in the future, including whether it will upgrade the technology it uses to staff flights with pilots and crews.
Watterson apologized and promised that its technology will be updated this week – and that it will invest $1.3 billion in operations upgrades.
Southwest’s pilots’ union president, Captain Casey Murray, told the committee the failure came despite several union warnings. In answer to Cantwell’s question about what he thinks it will take to get the system upgraded to avoid future delays, Murray says it’ll take a much more holistic approach, “When there is a disruption, then Southwest…it takes Southwest much longer to recover, and it’s more for us. It’s a process in how they program that IT, in how they connect pilots to airplanes, and flight attendants, which is what causes the ongoing execution problems, so that is something that can be done relatively quickly.” Murray says any of the pilots who came with him to the hearing could attest to the chaos they go through, not knowing where they’re going to go, where they’re going to overnight nor for how long.
A representative for an airline trade group says a combination of public and private investments, including major improvements at the FAA, are also needed, especially after the recent failure of the FAA’s system that forced the first nationwide ground stop since September 11th, 2001.
Republicans on the committee say Democrats’ calls for more federal regulation will result in fewer flights for higher ticket prices.
You can watch the entire hearing here.