Southwest Airlines CEO on flights chaos: ‘No way to almost apologize enough’

The chief executive of Southwest Airlines has apologized for holiday period disruptions that saw more than 15,000 flights canceled across the US, stranding passengers and leaving many scrambling to find their luggage.

"I am extremely sorry," Bob Jordan told ABC News on Friday morning. "There's just no way to almost apologize enough."

On Friday, the Dallas-based airline recorded only 41 canceled flights, down from almost 2,400 the day before. While the cancelations figure was still more than United, American and Delta combined, it represented progress following one of the most chaotic weeks for a single airline in aviation history. Jordan said Southwest had a "great operation" with more than 3,900 flights on the schedule.

Asked about the reason for the "meltdown", which began under a massive winter storm last week, Jordan said the "unprecedented" weather problems wreaked havoc for all airlines.

Pressed further, he said: "The storm had an impact but we had impacts beyond the storm."

In response to claims, especially from the flight attendants' union, that the near-collapse was the result of outdated technology and ignoring repeated calls for change, Jordan said the company was "making investments in our operational areas". He did not acknowledge the issue of prior warnings from employees.

"There'll be lessons learned from this and we'll continue to make more investments," he said.

Jordan also said Southwest would reimburse passengers for canceled flights as well as costs for hotel rooms, rental cars or other flights. Many frustrated passengers faced exorbitant rates from other airlines as they scrambled to save their travel plans.

The US transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, has said Southwest will be investigated over the debacle, focusing on outdated scheduling technology.

Jordan told ABC he was "aligned" with Buttigieg, who in a letter to Jordan late on Thursday called the disruptions "unacceptable".

"While weather can disrupt flight schedules, the thousands of cancelations by Southwest in recent days have not been because of the weather," the transportation secretary wrote. "Other airlines that experienced weather-related cancelations and delays due to the winter storm recovered relatively quickly, unlike Southwest."

On ABC, Jordan was asked about calls for him and other executives to resign. The chief executive, who has been in the job for less than a year, deflected the question.

He said: "There'll be a lot of great lessons to come out of this, in terms of what we can do to make sure this doesn't happen again."

He added: "This has impacted so many people, so many customers, over the holidays. It's impacted our employees. And I'm extremely sorry for that. There's just no way almost to apologize enough because we love our customers, we love our people and we really impacted their plans."

Southwest executives have said it may take as long as a week to connect all passengers with their destinations.

The air travel industry is still recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic. Jordan said the holiday meltdown will "certainly" hit Southwest when it reports fourth-quarter results at the end of January. Shares, which fell 8% this week, appeared to stabilize on Friday.

Buttigieg has also come under scrutiny, for allegedly ignoring warning signs about airlines' poor records with consumers.

Ro Khanna, a progressive Democratic congressman from California, has highlighted a letter sent to Buttigieg by Bernie Sanders in June, in which the Vermont senator outlined issues facing the airline industry including flight delays, cancelations and high prices.

Sanders also called for strict fines and provisions to refund passengers promptly.