Southwest Airlines hopes to return to its normal operations Friday following several days of flight cancellations or delays that plagued the airline during one of its busiest seasons.
Although Southwest has flights in and out of Valley International Airport in Harlingen, fliers in the area weren’t as severely impacted as others since Harlingen is either their destination site or departure site, said Nicolas Mirman, director of air service and business development for VIA.
“Things are gradually and slowly getting better,” Mirman said Thursday. “When the whole thing started, they cancelled their complete operation, not only here, but pretty much everywhere. Since then, they have been recovering and the push was to have 30% of planes scheduled flying yesterday (Wednesday) and today (Thursday).”
Two Southwest flights left VIA on Wednesday, and another two on Thursday, and Mirman said it looked like Friday “would be almost normal.”
Southwest hopes to get back to its normal scheduling by the end of this year.
Southwest flight cancellations for Friday out of Harlingen are expected, and Mirman said the airline should have already contacted the passengers to let them know about the cancellations.
“It’s not like its an unexpected cancellation, if they have to cancel people will know which is a huge difference from not knowing,” he said.
Thousands of Southwest passengers were stranded at airports nationwide where either their flights or connecting flights had been cancelled and they were unable to rebook flights.
According to The Associated Press, it is likely that far more than 1 million passengers have been affected. Southwest has canceled more than 13,000 flights since its meltdown began on Dec. 22. Its planes have 143 to 175 seats and were likely nearly fully booked around the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.
Southwest has acknowledged that it has inadequate and outdated technology that can leave flight crews out of position when bad weather strikes. But company executives told employees that problems with crew-scheduling have largely been fixed, the AP reported.
On Thursday, four out of seven Southwest flights expected to depart from Harlingen were cancelled, with one arrival cancelled.
“People have been super nice and understanding. They stayed in line when they had to, they followed the directions from Southwest on how to proceed,” Mirman said. “There were no people stranded or sleeping on the floor; that is not happening here….it has not been as bad as we have seen on the national news.”
“We are sorry and understand how hard it was and wished that it hadn’t had happened. I’m pretty sure Southwest is taking notes about this meltdown, if you will, and they will be taking some measure on how to handle it better,” Mirman said, adding that staffed based out of Harlingen were very versed, professional and have been treating their clients “phenomenally well.”
In a press release issued Thursday by Southwest, the airline said it plans to turn to normal operations on Friday with “minimal disruptions.”
“We are encouraged by the progress we’ve made to realign Crew, their schedules, and our fleet. With another holiday weekend full of important connections for our valued Customers and Employees, we are eager to return to a state of normalcy,” the airline said.
The airline also offered its “deepest apologies” to is customers, employees and to all affected through the disruption.
Southwest has also set up a page on its website for customers to submit refund and reimbursement requests for meals, hotel, and alternate transportation; as well as to connect customers to their baggage.
The page can be found at Southwest.com/traveldisruption.
The airlines said it has much work ahead of us, including investing in new solutions to manage wide-scale disruptions.
“We aim to serve our customers and employees with our legendary levels of Southwest Hospitality and reliability again very soon,” the press release said.
