The problems at Southwest Airlines run deeper than the operational meltdown that caused more than 2,000 flight cancellations in recent days. And they'll continue well after the airline is back on schedule.
Although this weekend's problems were mainly limited to Southwest, it is by no means the only airline struggling to restore staff and flights that were trimmed during the pandemic. Fixing these problems will be expensive and time-consuming — and are likely to cause further pain for passengers returning to the skies.Southwest said a number of issues caused the weekend cancellations, including bad weather and a brief problem at the Air Traffic Control center in Jacksonville, Florida.
Those problems won't be fixed any time soon, predicted Philip Baggaley, chief credit analyst for airlines at Standard & Poor's"The airlines are trying to navigate a difficult period. They reduced staffing quite a bit during the pandemic. Now they're ramping back up while the demand situation is somewhat uncertain," Baggaley said."It's certainly not a problem unique to Southwest.
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