DOJ joins probe of Southwest’s holiday flight meltdown: Was schedule ‘unrealistic’?

The Department of Justice has joined an investigation led by means of the Department of Transportation into Southwest Airlines’ meltdown in December — when the corporate canceled greater than 16,000 flights over an 11-day length — a DOT spokesperson stated.

The DOT’s probe is having a look into “whether Southwest engaged in unrealistic flight scheduling which is illegal under federal law and whether Southwest Airlines provided timely refunds and reimbursements to affected passengers as required,” the company spokesperson stated in a remark.

“The DOT team … is also closely coordinating with DOJ and FAA,” the spokesperson stated.

In a remark, Southwest stated it has now not won any inquiries but from the DOJ however is able to cooperate with the federal government companies.

Southwest’s in depth cancellations left 1000’s of passengers stranded because of this of serious wintry weather storms, staffing shortages and generation problems.

The airline stated the breakdown price greater than $800 million in earnings within the fourth quarter of 2022.

At the time, Southwest’s CEO Bob Jordan apologized for the chaos all over an interview with ABC News, announcing, “This has impacted so many people, so many customers over the holidays, it’s impacted our employees and I’m extremely sorry for that. There’s just no way, almost, to apologize enough.”

In January, the DOT introduced that it was once investigating and in a February listening to, the corporate’s COO, Andrew Watterson, addressed the cancellations earlier than the Senate Commerce Committee.

“Let me be clear: We messed up,” Watterson stated. “In hindsight, we did not have enough winter operational resilience.”

In March, Southwest unveiled a three-part plan to spice up the airline’s operational resiliency within the face of long term demanding situations.

But issues have endured: Last week, Southwest planes have been in short grounded national and greater than 2,000 flights have been not on time because of this of a technical factor with an inner device.

“This is another demonstration that Southwest Airlines needs to upgrade their systems and stop the negative impacts to individual travelers,” Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell, chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, stated in a remark on the time.