When Kelleher retired as CEO in 2004, the reins were turned over to Gary Kelly, an accountant by training and a person more focused on the financial aspects of the airline than its operations. He said Kelleher would always say the biggest threat to Southwest would be from within and not from competitors. Everything that was needed to run a first-class operation,” according to Lonero. We had tools, leadership and employee buy-in. We were a tight operation from top to bottom. That philosophy flowed down through the ranks of leadership to the front-line managers. ![]() “He always had his pulse on the day-to-day operation and the people who ran it. He’d spend time in the trenches with his frontline workers and earned their admiration and respect. Kelleher, one of the most brilliant airline executives I’ve ever interviewed, was a hands-on operations guy. ![]() Southwest was co-founded by the legendary Herb Kelleher in 1967. The next will be technological upgrades to Southwest’s operations software. The first step is compensating customers for their losses and reuniting checked luggage with its owners. Sure enough, Southwest CEO Bob Jordan made a public announcement last week that the airline has begun efforts to restore its customers’ trust. But it’s going to take hundreds of millions of dollars to fix the problem, he said. The good news from Boyd is that he’s not only optimistic but certain that Southwest will turn things around within two months. What happened … started two decades ago.” And we’ve been begging our leadership to make much needed changes in order to avoid it. “Unfortunately, the frontline employees have been watching this meltdown coming like a slow-motion train wreck for some time. “Many of you have asked what caused this epic meltdown,” Lonero said on Facebook. That’s all there was to it.”īoyd’s comments validate statements made by Southwest pilot Larry Lonero, whose social media post went into great detail about his theory on what happened. Southwest could not manage its crews and its airplanes in this meltdown. “They have a crew scheduling system that wasn’t adequate for the meltdown. “It’s really simple,” said Mike Boyd, president and CEO of Boyd Group International, an Evergreen, Colorado, aviation consultant. ![]() While a massive winter storm was initially blamed for Southwest canceling an estimated 16,000 flights over a four-day period, the airline’s problems are much deeper, according to a Southwest pilot, who turned to Facebook to explain the meltdown that occurred last month, and an aviation expert, who has been tracking Southwest for decades. Southwest is expected to undertake a technology upgrade that would fix some of its longtime operational issues. ![]() (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)Īre you done with Southwest Airlines, after your Christmas and New Year’s travel was ruined by the busiest airline serving Las Vegas? "We currently have crew bases for Pilots and Flight Attendants in Las Vegas and are proud to be the largest commercial carrier of passengers to and from Harry Reid International Airport.Travelers queue up at the check-in counters for Southwest Airlines in Denver International Airport, Friday, Dec. "Our next schedule extension will be published very soon." When contacted by Simple Flying for this article, a spokesperson for Southwest Airlines reaffirmed the carrier's commitment to the airport: The airline first exceeded its pre-pandemic capacity in June. The carrier has pilot and crew bases in the city and is a significant regional employer. Over 3,700 staff and crew currently work at Southwest Airlines in Las Vegas. Over 43 million passengers traveled through the airport in the months leading up to October, with 15 million being flown on Southwest. According to the most recent publicly available statistics, the airport served 5,171,911 passengers in October 2022, up 23.7% from the same period last year. The Las Vegas airport exceeded 5 million passengers served in a single month for the first time this year. Photo: Harry Reid Airport New growth in Nevada.
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