Southwest Airlines Cancellations During Holiday Travel Class Action

Southwest Airlines Company is a major US passenger airline. Between December 24, 2022 and January 2, 2023, however, the airline experienced enormous flight delays around the country, during a peak travel time, which the complaint for this class action alleges was due to technical problems with its systems. The complaint also claims that passengers whose flights were cancelled have not been reimbursed.

A class and a subclass have been defined for this action:

• The Nationwide Class is all persons in the US who bought tickets for a Southwest Airlines flight which was delayed or cancelled (including, but not only, in June 2020, October 2021, and December 24, 2022-January 2, 2023), and who were not given a refund or reimbursed for expenses incurred because of the delay or cancellation.
• The Nationwide Subclass is all persons in the US who bought tickets for a Southwest Airlines flight which was delayed or cancelled between December 24, 2022 and January 2, 2023, and who were not given a refund or reimbursed for expenses incurred because of the delay or cancellation, and who checked luggage between the above dates.

The airline suffered a “meltdown,” the complaint alleges, in the middle of the Christmas travel season with cancellations of almost 16,000 flights and baggage piling up at airports. The complaint alleges that “the root cause … was outdated and ineffective technology, in particular, its crew scheduling system (called ‘Sky Solver’). Further compounding on this issue, Southwest Airlines used an aggressive flight schedule that left it prone to greater cancellations than its competitors in the event of unusual conditions, such as nationwide storms.”

A storm occurred, the complaint claims, and “amid a huge volume of changes to crew schedules to work through, SkySolver couldn’t handle the task of matching crew members and which flights they should work…” Much of the work had to be done manually, the complaint alleges, not just to work out schedules for them but also to make sure the schedules meet federal rules on work hours for flight crews, to keep them from getting too fatigued to maintain safety.

Also, the complaint charges that when the system would reroute travelers with canceled flights, it would sometimes book them so that their incoming flights to an airport would arrive after the connecting flights they were trying to make had already left.

The complaint blames the airline’s systems, which it claims were decades old, something the airline was aware of before this travel period began. “But despite Southwest’s assurances to the public,” the complaint says, “Southwest made no effort to remedy the technical flaws in its system but instead gave a dividend to its investors.

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Consumer
Tags: Air Travel Delays or Cancellations, Airline TIckets, Breach of Contract, Breach of the Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing