Southwest Airlines Gives Refunds to 270,000 Travelers for Holiday Meltdown

By Kyle Arnold, The Dallas Morning News (TNS).

Southwest Airlines has reimbursed more than 273,406 passengers since its December meltdown that left millions of passengers stranded, more than 96% of all requests submitted so far.

“Anything that was well documented and under $4,000 our representative approved on the spot,” Southwest Airlines Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson told reporters Thursday before a U.S. Senate hearing in Washington, D.C., to talk about the airline’s holiday fiasco that led to 16,700 canceled flights. “We reimbursed tire chains, strollers, car seats, pet sitting, but things we didn’t reimburse were things like $7,000 shopping sprees at luxury stores or chartering a private jet.”

Anything above $4,000 was elevated to a supervisor for review, he said.

Southwest said in late December that it would reimburse any “reasonable requests” submitted by customers put out by the December meltdown between Dec. 24 and Jan. 2. It was trying to repair the reputational hit it took after one of the worst operational disruptions in U.S. airline history. The company also gave $300 worth of frequent flyer points to anyone who was delayed or had a flight canceled during that time and gave bonuses to employees who worked during the meltdown as well.

“We emailed every single person that was disrupted and gave them points as well as apologized and gave them resources to contact us back should they need to,” Watterson said at the hearing.

Southwest gave an update to that effort Thursday, saying that it has received 284,188 eligible reimbursement requests so far. Airline passengers are entitled to a refund for canceled flights and some expenses, but Southwest tried to go above and beyond to make up for the disruptions by paying for customers’ rental cars, hotels, food and most other expenses.

Southwest has also almost completed the task of returning luggage to customers after it was strewn across the country when flights were canceled and delayed, putting passengers on different flights than their belongings or sometimes not on any flight at all. Airports across the country became depositories for thousands of suitcases, backpacks and duffle bags in late December.

“We’ve returned every single bag, except there are 200 that we still have with no markings or identifying information that we’re holding,” Watterson said. “And we will continue to hold those until we can find someone who owns it.”