Experts say the company’s business model and recent growth made this week’s debacle inevitable.
, what is now a 742-plane operation in 42 U.S. states and 10 other countries began in 1967 on a cocktail napkin at a hotel bar in San Antonio. Herb Kelleher, then a lawyer, and Rollin King, a pilot, sketched out their idea for a low-cost airline that shuttled passengers between Dallas, Houston and San Antonio.
As it expanded to other cities, the airline kept fares low by routing passengers to smaller airports in metropolitan hubs like Midway in Chicago. It also flew only one type of plane — the Boeing 737 — and stripped away frills, serving peanuts instead of an in-flight meal and offering no assigned seating.
The work of ensuring that crews are in the same locations as planes and scheduled flights is part of the enormously complicated dance of modern aviation that is largely invisible to the flying public until something breaks down. When a blast of Arctic air swept through much of the nation last week, bringing airports in Denver and Chicago nearly to a halt, Southwest’s aging software suddenly spilled into public view.Southwest couldn’t get crews in those cities to the rest of its network.
“Southwest has been like America’s sweetheart,” she said. “They need to win back hearts and win back the trust of the consumer.” This can be done if they lean into the intense burst of publicity, she added, urging them “to be flamboyant in how they make this up to people.”
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