Federal investigation into Southwest Airlines ongoing as airlines prep for winter holiday travel

WASHINGTON — It’s hard to forget these moments after Southwest Airlines canceled nearly 17,000 flights over the 2022 Christmas and New Year’s holiday.

The meltdown left two million passengers stranded and led to an investigation by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“The overall goal is to make sure that these kinds of disruptions don’t happen in the first place,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “When they do we need to make sure the passengers are supported, that their costs are taken care of.”

This week, Kirstin Garriss sat down one-on-one with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. His agency is figuring out whether Southwest Airlines scheduled unrealistic flights last winter. The DOT explains this is considered “an unfair and deceptive practice” under federal law.

“We need to make sure that Southwest passengers are taken care of and that we send a signal to the entire industry about the need to prevent these issues from happening. That means realistic schedules in the first place. Don’t sell a ticket that you know, you’re not going to be able to serve,” he said.

This year, Southwest Airlines released a new action plan for improving winter operations. The plan includes additional deicing trucks and ground equipment. According to a company video, the airline also invested in new technology to assist with deicing procedures.

“Allows for a more precise measure of deice and anti-icing fluid holdover times which is the estimated time anti-icing fluid prevents the accumulations of certain kinds of frozen precipitation on the protected surfaces of an aircraft,” said Lee Kinnebrew, VP of Flight Operations at Southwest Airlines.

In a recent video statement, the company said it also changed the structure of its Network Operations Control or NOC team.

“Network planning sharing what they’ve designed with the NOC, and the NOC offering quicker feedback that goes into building a schedule that makes it easier to recover,” said Adam Decaire, Senior VP of Network Planning & Operations at Southwest Airlines.

This holiday travel season, Secretary Buttigieg says he’ll be watching how all airlines navigate winter weather.

“The real test of the system isn’t just how it does on a blue-sky day,” said Secretary Buttigieg. “It’s how does it do when there’s a problem? How long does it take to get back on its feet?”

Secretary Buttigieg said the DOT has also stepped up enforcement for all airlines. This includes helping passengers receive billions of dollars in refunds from flight issues.

Additionally, the Transportation Department said there should be an announcement about its final investigation findings soon.

We reached out to Southwest Airlines for a comment but at the time of this publication, we haven’t heard back.

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