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After canceling more than 15,000 flights over the last week, Southwest Airlines has announced that it aims to return to normal operations “with minimal disruptions” by Friday.
On Thursday, the Dallas-based airline was still only operating about one-third of its schedule, with more than 2,300 flights canceled.
“We are encouraged by the progress we’ve made to realign Crew, their schedules, and our fleet,” Southwest said in a statement. “With another holiday weekend full of important connections for our valued Customers and Employees, we are eager to return to a state of normalcy.”
While also acknowledging that its apologies could “only go so far,” the company also directed those affected by the disruptions to a new webpage where they could submit their requests for refunds and reimbursements and report missing luggage.
“We have much work ahead of us, including investing in new solutions to manage wide-scale disruptions,” Southwest added. “We aim to serve our Customers and Employees with our legendary levels of Southwest Hospitality and reliability again very soon.”
Southwest’s statement follows the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Dec. 26 announcement that it intends to investigate the airline’s “unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays” and reports of poor customer service.
“The Department will examine whether cancellations were controllable and if Southwest is complying with its customer service plan,” DOT said in a tweet.
