Southwest’s Old Technology Causes Big Headaches

A new reservations system can’t arrive soon enough for Southwest Airlines. The partial failure of a data router on July 20 led to an operational meltdown that caused the airline to cancel 2,300 flights over four days. “When the router failed, the data … piled up like a freeway traffic jam,” Chief Executive Officer Gary Kelly wrote in a July 29 employee memo. “Like it or not, we live with some old technology.” Other systems then shut down. Southwest fixed the glitch in about 12 hours, but the outage displaced aircraft and crews nationwide and stranded thousands of passengers.

The incident will cost “into the tens of millions” of dollars, Bob Jordan, the company’s chief commercial officer, told the Associated Press on Aug. 1. A Southwest spokeswoman says the airline has no further comment about the cost.