Sen Tammy Baldwin Chides Southwest Airlines Exec On Holiday Disruption

By Erik Gunn, Wisconsin Examiner

February 9, 2023

Sen. Tammy Baldwin confronted a Southwest Airlines executive about the company’s spending priorities during a Senate hearing Thursday looking into the massive disruption to flights in the last 10 days of December. More than 16,000 Southwest flights were canceled between Dec. 21 and 31. The air carrier blamed software that it said couldn’t keep up with widespread flight changes in response to a severe winter storm that wreaked havoc in large parts of the eastern half of the U.S.

At a hearing of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Thursday, Baldwin told Southwest’s chief operating officer, Andrew Watterson, about a constituent whose flight from Florida was among those canceled during that period.

“His flight was canceled twice at the very last minute, and while he was waiting at the airport, he had no choice other than to spend an unexpected $222 to stay at a hotel,” Baldwin said. “The next morning, with no good options, he spent about $700 to rent a vehicle and drive 23 hours home.”

Baldwin told Watterson she wanted to see the airline “prioritize your customers the highest of all,” then asked, “Do you plan on moving forward with any stock buybacks prior to ensuring that your technology is fully prepared to deal with a similar disruption in the future?”

Watterson replied, “We will continue to fund what’s necessary, and whatever comes out of this review, we will fund what’s necessary to achieve that.”

Accountable.us, a nonprofit watchdog group, has blamed the Southwest debacle on the company’s $5.6 billion in stock buybacks in the three years before the COVID-19 pandemic — money that Accountable.us charged should have been used to invest in upgrades and personnel that might have avoided the holiday collapse.

A federal measure that bailed out airlines in the pandemic included a provision barring them from stock buybacks until September 2022, Baldwin’s office noted in a press statement Thursday. The press statement included a link to a video of the exchange with Watterson. Baldwin’s office stated that while Southwest had not done any buybacks since the deadline passed the airline announced in December it would pay shareholders a $428 million dividend in the first quarter of 2023.

Baldwin also called on the company to “commit to providing clear and improved communication with airports” after hearing that Milwaukee’s Mitchell International Airport had “concerns” with communications from the company’s top executives, her statement said.

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