The top attorney at the US Department of Transportation planned to visit Southwest Airlines Co.’s headquarters as part of an investigation into the carrier’s December operations meltdown that affected more than 2 million people, according to government emails.
(Bloomberg) — The top attorney at the US Department of Transportation planned to visit Southwest Airlines Co.’s headquarters as part of an investigation into the carrier’s December operations meltdown that affected more than 2 million people, according to government emails.
DOT General Counsel John Putnam detailed a proposed agenda for the trip in a Jan. 1 email to members of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s staff. He called for two days of meetings with various employee groups, including crew scheduling, system operations and customer relations workers.
“We believe the trip will be important to see and dig into the details regarding their recovery process and send the right signals reinforcing the extent of our concerns,” Putnam said in the email.
The email was among 321 pages of heavily redacted documents released by the FAA to Bloomberg News Friday, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
Southwest didn’t immediately comment on whether the visit had occurred or is scheduled. The DOT didn’t immediately respond to email and text messages sent outside of normal business hours seeking comment on the emails.
Southwest has come under intense scrutiny from federal lawmakers, regulators and passengers over 16,700 flight cancellations over 10 days in late December when its systems became overwhelmed during a winter storm. The airline’s chief operating officer was questioned by members of a US Senate committee on Dec. 9 about the meltdown and acknowledged the airline had “messed up.”
The DOT said Jan. 26 that it’s in the early stage of a probe into whether Southwest had “unrealistic scheduling of flights, which under federal law is considered an unfair and deceptive practice.”
That followed warnings from Buttigieg in a December conversation with Southwest Chief Executive Officer Bob Jordan that the airline needed to quickly refund fares for canceled flights and repay passengers for related expenses or face possible fines in the tens of thousands of dollars per violation.
Jordan had requested a late-December call with Buttigieg to offer an explanation for the carrier’s poor performance and what Southwest was doing to remedy the situation, according to one email. Many of the emails and texts exchanged between the airline, DOT and the Federal Aviation Administration were heavily redacted, including some that reached recipients in the White House.
In a Dec. 31 email, Maren Matal, a senior attorney in Southwest’s government affairs department, said the carrier was working “in good faith to process an unprecedented volume” of refunds within seven business days and detailed the number of employees working on the effort across departments at the carrier. The email included two photos showing rooms at Southwest’s offices crowded with employees working on the recovery Dec. 31.
It’s unknown what the FAA and DOT discussed with the White House. The flurry of emails were heavily redacted and only said “Southwest” in the subject line. Other emails reveal how the FAA and Department of Transportation handled and responded to a barrage of media inquiries about the week-long incident.
–With assistance from Alan Levin.
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