Southwest Airlines, which has canceled or delayed tens of thousands of flights this holiday season, has received massive amounts in federal subsidies in the last several years, records show.
Southwest has canceled over 15,700 flights since winter weather began to affect air travel on Dec. 22, far more than any other commercial United States airline, according to records compiled by FlightAware. However, since 2020, the U.S. government has handed Southwest over $7.2 billion in taxpayer funds for payroll and operations, filings show, calling into question whether the airline has managed its resources correctly.
“Airlines continue to take our tax dollars, yet they never seem to make long-term changes that will improve the experience for customers,” Adam Andrzejewski, CEO of the financial watchdog OpenTheBooks, told the Washington Examiner. “As soon as demand recovered, there was industrywide disruption.”
“These major carriers should use profits to improve systems and position themselves to handle economic headwinds,” he added. “Until then, Congress and airlines will be addicted to subsidies.”
The federal government has long given subsidies to airlines for maintenance and upkeep. As part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, a $2.2 trillion stimulus bill signed by former President Donald Trump in March 2020 and meant to help people amid the spread of COVID-19, Southwest pulled in more than $3.3 billion for payroll support in September 2020.
In addition, the Treasury Department agreed to purchase over 1 million shares of Southwest stock as part of that aid. The stock has tumbled by over 24% in the last year and almost 50% in the last five years.
Then, in April 2021, Southwest received over $3.8 billion in subsidies and American Rescue Plan Act funding, records show. The $1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus bill was signed by President Joe Biden in March 2021 and, like the CARES Act, helped airlines avoid bankruptcy.
“Southwest had $116 million in 2021 profits to upgrade all of its information technology systems,” said Andrzejewski. “It was the first airline to declare profits after receiving massive $7.2 billion taxpayer subsidies during the pandemic. Unfortunately, Southwest had other priorities.”
On Monday, the Department of Transportation said it would investigate Southwest’s customer service policies that led to a “disproportionate and unacceptable rate” of flight cancellations and delays. Biden said in a Tuesday tweet that his administration “is working to ensure airlines are held accountable” and linked to a government webpage tracking examples of what airlines say customers could be compensated for.
Southwest has claimed that its holiday season failures are due to issues with “scheduling tools.” Capt. Mike Santoro, vice president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, a union organization, said on Tuesday that the winter storm was a “catalyst” for Southwest’s problems and that the airline’s scheduling software is “outdated.”
“We were fully staffed and prepared for the approaching holiday weekend when the severe weather swept across the continent, where Southwest is the largest carrier in 23 of the top 25 travel markets in the U.S.,” a spokeswoman for Southwest told the Washington Examiner. “These operational conditions forced daily changes of an unprecedented volume and magnitude to our flight schedule and the tools our teams use to recover the airline remain at capacity.”
“The Southwest Team is working to accommodate Customers on available flights as soon as possible, and we apologize for the inconvenience to our Customers,” the spokeswoman added.
A portion of the COVID-19 relief that Southwest has received, $976 million, is a low-interest loan that the airline has 10 years to pay back. Southwest turned a profit of $116 million in 2021 — becoming the first airline since the start of the pandemic to become profitable.
The chaos in connection to Southwest this holiday season comes as other airlines, which also took massive amounts in COVID-19 relief, fare better in getting customers from one place to the other. Southwest’s over 2,500 canceled flights on Wednesday account for 62% of such cases in the industry, according to FlightAware.
However, Spirit Airlines only canceled 31 flights on Wednesday, according to FlightAware. JetBlue canceled 28 flights on Wednesday, Delta Air Lines canceled 12 flights, United Airlines canceled nine flights, and American Airlines canceled 23 flights.
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If the goal is to make travel as unpleasant as possible (they really don’t want us moving around), perhaps SW got their marching orders FROM the regime
Control is all about demoralization.
This thought has crossed by mind too.
Used to work for Southwest and they ran that company very well. It was the BEST airline to work for & well known for their customer service.
This whole debacle has me perplexed. It’s really not like them.
When you take money from the government, strings are ALWAYS attached. No exceptions.
Dallas loves Field.
“Used to work for Southwest and they ran that company very well”
?
And the strings are obvious in almost any industry. Take the money, hire a bunch of equity hires. Big business is becoming as disfunctional as government as we load it up with people with a piece of paper that says that they’re smart but no actual skills. Once people don’t actually understand the systems that they’re running, the minute anything goes wrong they are helpless to do anything about it.
Yup. Several of us called it when Participation Trophies and “We don’t keep score” became a thing in the schools. Now it is prevalent through all of western society.
“We can’t discriminate based on merit!”
The machines will fail and those that know how to fix them will have been eliminated in the name of diversity and not hurting a stupid persons feelings by failing them. This will compound as those who teach will be drawn from the same lot of not-allowed-to-fail idiots.
Welcome to the coming Pakled society.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Pakled
“(they really don’t want us moving around)”
Some, obviously comparatively large % of Us can’t/refuse to ‘See’ that component.
Feel for the People that Must fly. To get a paycheck. Same with cell phones.
Should have read comments first.
I think you’ve got it.
Used to date a woman who was #2 in the Revenue Acctg. Dept. of a major carrier. She told me bluntly that as a whole, the entire industry never made a net profit when you combined all revenues over the years. Without govt. handouts, they’d all go belly-up.
I’ve read that.
Yet another reason for true free markets.
If true profits for services rendered were allowed to be, air travel would be yet another wonderful modern service, with polite help, safe, comfortable equipment, multi-tiered, differently-priced products . . . and customer satisfaction.
An apple, a burger, shoes, cars, houses, healthcare , education, or plane rides – or even national defense . . . all consumer items. Nothing special about any of ’em. Let profit-seeking individual actors provide what humanity demands.
Abolish the state.
I had a blind date with a flight attendant and yes female that was a stewardess for SW.
Well… how’d it go?
Had a flight with a blind date, she demanded to sit by the window. Her dog sat behind us and kept bumping the seat.
According to an individual with long personal experience of CVG operation – it is well known that the outdated crew scheduling software was the main cause of chaos. Statements initially by Southwest, that claimed all was caused by weather was bs.
How many competent White software developers have they fired over the past decade? How many incompetent diversity hires were brought in to replace them?
Why fly anymore ?
Have some TSA sheboon finger your junk.
Pay thru the nose to be surrounded by sheep jackoffs.
Sit on the runway for 2 hours and a faggot male democrat stewardess forbids you to take a leak.
Fuck the system……..Ill drive !
I won’t fly anymore. But that sucks too as I love to travel. Will only go places I can drive to, so international travel is out. (Not driving into Mexico to get murdered, and not driving into Canada)
It’s really a no win situation.
Have to fly to Miami for the Outlaw Country Cruise. With fingers crossed.
Hopefully Ray Wylie will sing “Up Against The Wall Redneck Mother”.
A cruise?? Nope. Nope. Nope.
There are ways to see Ray Wylie, Lyle Lovett, and Tyler Childers without flying & cruising. (ask me how I know. 😊)
Anyway, it doesn’t matter what I think. Have a great time, lamont!
The gov shouldn’t be using taxpayer dollars to prop up any company or industry, period. The idiots in DC act like they’re burning up our money as fast as possible. It’s time they got the message, stop blowing up our economy!
All part of the plan.
Maybe — just maybe — part of the problem at LOVE (and other airlines) is the forced jab that led to (a) death or disability of many flight crews; (b) quitting by many flight crews …
I posited the same thought regarding our local health clinic earlier. Sick, dead or crippled by the Jab or quit instead of take it. Sure to have an effect on the labour force available.
According to Ed Dowd, 2500 excess deaths and 5000 excess disabilities per DAY in the working age population.
Out of 100 million employed adults in the US, 1.7 million are newly dead or disabled.
When separating employed adults versus those that quit during mandates, the ones that stayed employed have a 500% higher rate of disability.
He concludes that the macroeconomic consequences are devastating. Labor shortages age here to stay and further worsen, and goods aren’t being moved leading to scarcity. Globalism is dead. This is a decivilization event.
Employment was detrimental to your health in 2021 and nobody can explain it away other than with the obvious reason.
“…the U.S. government has handed Southwest over $7.2 billion in taxpayer funds for payroll and operations…”
Why?
Maybe so that when the government calls them and say shut it down, they are obligated to shut it down.
The end game is the end of personal travel for anyone but the select- auto, air, whatever. You make it so cumbersome, intrusive, costly, and unpleasant you peel off a significant portion of the old school ravelling public year by year.