Southwest Airlines: innovating a commercial airline

Marlene M. Reed-Hislop

Chapter 13 in Cases on Corporate Entrepreneurship in North America, 2025, pp 142-150 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: On Monday, December 26, 2022, the CEO of Southwest Airlines faced a frightening dilemma. That day the company had been forced to cancel 1635 flights, and 2882 more had been canceled the preceding day, which was Christmas—the nation's biggest holiday. The Monday flights canceled represented 70 percent of all Southwest's flights, and the cancellations on Christmas day represented 42 percent of its flights for that day. Although the immediate cause of the cancellations was a severe winter storm that caused havoc all over the country, there appeared to be a bigger issue with some of the company's systems that were purported to be massively outdated. As a result, the airline ended up with flight crews and airplanes located in the wrong cities. Bob Jordan, the CEO of Southwest, knew he needed to come up with a reassuring statement for the public and a plan of action within the next few days to keep what had always been their loyal customer base happy.

Keywords: Southwest Airlines; Christmas cancellations; Systems failure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781803929224
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