“Southwest cannot avoid compensating passengers by claiming these flight cancellations were caused by recent winter storms,” Democratic senators Ed Markey and Richard Blumenthal, wrote in a joint statement Tuesday. “As Southwest executives have acknowledged, the mass cancellations yesterday were largely due to the failure of its own internal systems. As such, those cancellations should be categorized as ‘controllable,’ and Southwest should compensate passengers accordingly.”
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The senators accused Southwest of “failing” thousands of customers, many of whom watched helplessly as their family holiday plans withered before their eyes. In addition to rebooking delayed or canceled flights, the senators said the airline should commit to “significant monetary compensation for the disruption.”
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told CNN this week he discussed issues with “legacy systems” for scheduling during a conversation with CEO Bob Jordan. The former Democratic presidential nominee went on to say, “their [Southwest’s] system really has completely melted down.”
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“I made clear that our department will be holding them accountable for their responsibilities to customers, both to get them through this situation and to make sure that this can’t happen again,” Buttigieg added.
Meanwhile, Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation chair Maria Cantwell said her committee will launch an investigation probing the root causes of the Southwest disaster. Other lawmakers like Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren used the opportunity to draw attention to a rise in corporate consolidation overtaking the airlines industry, which she blamed in part for leaving U.S. travelers unable to find viable flight alternatives.
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