Southwest Airlines’ next CEO says carrier will cut flights next year if staffing falls short

Southwest Airlines’ next CEO says carrier will cut flights next year if staffing falls short

Customers suffered hundreds of cancelations, delays and other disruptions this summer as the carrier struggled with snowballing problems of bad weather and a lack of staff. , vowed not to repeat that. The airline is about halfway to its goal of hiring 5,000 workers this year and has already trimmed its schedule for the rest of the year to avoid further service shortfalls. The airline, and others like and , set out to operate an ambitious schedule last summer to try to recover revenues lost during the pandemic, but a shortfall of staff exacerbated operational issues. "The next question is the March schedule. We plan to meet that but if we find ourselves not able to hire to meet that we'll go back and look at modifying the schedule," Jordan said in an interview on Thursday. "What we're not going to do is we're not going to repeat last summer." Jordan, who takes the reins from Gary Kelly in February and is a 33-year Southwest employee, told the Skift Global Forum in New York earlier Thursday that the carrier also plans to add 8,000 employees next year. The Dallas-based airline has about 56,000 employees. Hiring has been a challenge. "We're