Southwest CEO Bob Jordan’s message, after a vacation meltdown derailed the journey plans of hundreds of thousands, is evident: “I can not say it sufficient. We tousled.”

Jordan’s focus now, he instructed CNBC in an interview, is making certain the same disaster by no means occurs once more. The airline has employed consulting agency Oliver Wyman to evaluate its processes, interview employees and union members, lay out what went improper, and decide how one can keep away from it sooner or later. The low-cost airline is working with General Electric to enhance the capabilities of software program that helps Southwest work out crew reassignments. And the airline’s board has created an operations evaluate committee to assist managers work by means of such occasions.

The occasion was jarring for a lot of vacationers used to Southwest customer support, which incorporates insurance policies like free checked luggage, a rarity for home U.S. journey. Lawmakers and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg stated they wish to look further into the disruptions.

The Transportation Division is within the early section of an investigation into the airline’s vacation turmoil and can also be “probing whether or not Southwest executives engaged in unrealistic scheduling of flights which underneath federal regulation is taken into account an unfair and misleading apply,” a spokesperson stated Wednesday.

Less than a year into the airline’s prime job, within the aftermath of journey chaos he hadn’t seen in his greater than three a long time at Southwest, Jordan is now tasked with making issues proper with passengers and employees.

“We took good will out of the financial institution. We all know that,” Jordan instructed CNBC. “We’ve got work to do to restore belief, however our prospects are very loyal and we’re seeing that loyalty.”

Southwest stated it supplied premium pay to flight attendants and $45 million in “gratitude pay” to pilots due to the meltdown. Each teams have warned about insufficient know-how and scheduling for years.

The provider has additionally handed out 25,000 Fast Rewards factors every, which the corporate estimates at a roughly $300 worth, to about 2 million individuals who had flights booked over the chaotic vacation interval, Jordan stated.

He stated {that a} current fare sale was profitable and that many purchasers are redeeming the often flyer factors for Southwest flights.

Southwest stated Thursday the chaos amounted to an $800-million hit to its pretax outcomes and a rare quarterly loss.

A Southwest spokeswoman instructed CNBC on Wednesday that the airline’s deliberate resumption of a quarterly dividend will go on as deliberate on Jan. 31

Southwest stated it canceled about 16,700 flights between Dec. 21 by means of Dec. 31, a tally that swelled after it didn’t get well from extreme winter climate that crippled journey throughout the nation, stabilizing days later. Airline executives had anticipated it to be the busiest journey interval since the Covid-19 pandemic started.

Hydraulic fluid turned so thick within the brutal chilly that jet bridges could not transfer. Snow and excessive winds suspended operations at airports throughout the nation. Airplane engines iced up. 

Most airways had largely recovered from the unhealthy climate by Christmas Day, however Southwest’s issues worsened when crews needed to name in to get new assignments or resort rooms, inflicting a backup.

The provider’s plane and crews have been left misplaced and on the mercy of crew scheduling methods that have been designed to deal with present or future flight disruptions, not a pileup of flight adjustments prior to now.

“We would have liked a bigger reply to reset the community,” Jordan stated. “That was mainly pulling the schedule down.”

Southwest flew round only a third of its deliberate schedule for a number of days after Christmas to get crews and planes the place they wanted to go.

“The GE Digital instrument that’s built-in into Southwest’s methods carried out as designed all through the occasion, and we’re working with them to outline new performance as they enhance their crew rescheduling functionality,” a GE spokesman stated Tuesday.

Nonetheless, scheduling chaos after unhealthy climate is not new for the airline business. JetBlue‘s meltdown in February 2007 value CEO David Neeleman, JetBlue’s founder, his job. (He has since began a new carrier within the U.S., known as Breeze Airways.)

Southwest itself had a smaller-scale cascade of flight disruptions in October 2021 that value it round $75 million. Months earlier, Spirit Airlines took a $50 million hit from mass disruptions.

“Each airline has its fall, and from that they rise with new views,” stated Samuel Engel, a senior vice chairman at consulting agency ICF. “The airline reaches a sure level of complexity and has a disruption occasion of such scale that it causes them to look deep inside.”

Each Spirit and Southwest function so-called point-to-point networks that do not depend on hubs, like bigger airways, and as a substitute have planes hopscotching across the nation. The mannequin usually works and helps hold prices down, however it could possibly compound disruptions throughout excessive occasions.

Jordan defended the mannequin and stated the community is normally simpler to get well as a result of vacationers do not need to depend on connections to get to their locations.

“The problem right here wasn’t the community, the problem was what number of locations obtained hit with climate and what number of cancellations that drove, mainly repeatedly,” he stated.

Southwest, United, Delta and American management greater than three-quarters of the U.S. market.

“Prospects simply constantly select their flights based mostly on fare and schedule,” he stated. “As they are going by means of a disrupted journey they will say ‘by no means once more’ — after which they do.”

Mark Ahasic, an aviation marketing consultant who labored with JetBlue in the course of the 2007 meltdown, stated the airline’s fame “took successful, but it surely did not destroy the model.”

Southwest has to resolve the problems that induced the vacation bother and make amends with prospects, however many vacationers — notably these at airports the place Southwest has a powerful foothold — sometimes have few airline selections, Ahasic stated.

Southwest has almost completed processing buyer refunds and is working by means of the extra complicated activity of reimbursements, which Jordan stated contains every part from meals to dog-sitting charges. Some vacationers who have been left to pay excessive fares for scarce seats on different airways are nonetheless ready for his or her a refund.

Codi Smith, a 28-year-old artist who lives in Los Angeles, paid $578.60 for a Delta flight again to LA from his mom’s home in St. Louis after Southwest canceled a part of his return journey after Christmas. Southwest supplied Smith an alternate flight on New Yr’s Eve, however Smith stated he has a number of sclerosis and wanted to get again to Los Angeles sooner to get his medicine.

“I simply did not know what may occur,” Smith stated.

Southwest refunded Smith for the portion of his journey on its airline, however as of final week hadn’t refunded him what he spent on the Delta flight. He stated Southwest despatched him 4 inflight drink coupons.

“Why would I exploit drink tickets whenever you owe me $600?” he stated. “I actually simply need this a refund.”

Cameron Brainard, a voiceover artist and nation music radio host, stated he paid greater than $1,000 to get again to New York from Nashville, Tennessee, together with a rental automobile from Louisville, Kentucky. Southwest supplied him $540.02, noting in a Jan. 19 electronic mail, which Brainard shared with CNBC, that he hasn’t claimed the reimbursement but.

“Make sure that to assert this cost earlier than it expires” in July, the e-mail reads. “This cost constitutes full and last settlement of your declare with Southwest Airways.”

Brainard stated he flies Southwest often and is not planning to stop the airline after his cancellation, although he would “second guess it” relying on how his reimbursement pans out.

“I hope it makes them a greater airline,” he stated.